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PAPERS 






FOR 



1811, 



eOMMUSTICATED TO THE 



MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



tor 



PROMOTING AGRICULTUKE. 






PUBLISHED BT THE TRUSTEES. 



Without encouragement of Agriculture, and thereby increasing the 
number ot its people, any country, however, blessed by nature, must 
continue poor. swift. 



BOSTON: 
PRINTED BY MUNROE & FRENCH, 

PRINTERS TO THE STATE, 

1811, 






1 



I*- 



OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY, 

CHOSEN JUNE, 181f. 



Hon. JOHN ADAMS, L. L. D. President. 
AARON DEXTER, M. D. First Vice-President. 
S. W. POMEROY, Esq. Second Vice-President. 
RICHARD SULLIVAN, Esq. Recording Secretary. 
JOHN LOWELL, Esq. Corresponding Secretary. 
THOMAS L. WINTHROP, Esq. Treasurer, 
Hon. D. A. TYNG, Esq. 
EBEN PREBLE, Esq. 
Hon. P. C. BROOKS, Esq. 1 T 

SAMUEL G. PERKINS, Esq. 
GORHAM PARSONS, Esq. 
JOHN PRINCE, Jun. Esq. 



PREMIUMS 

OFFERED BY THE TRUSTEES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS 
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 



1. To the person who shall discover an effectual and 
cheap method of destroying the Canker-worm, and give evi- 
dence thereof, to the satisfaction of the trustees, on or before 
the first day of June, 1813, a premium of one hundred dol- 
lars, or the society's gold medal. 

2. And a premium of one hundred dollars, or the socie- 
ty's gold medal, to the person who shall, on or before the 
first day of October, 1813, discover an effectual, and the 
cheapest method of destroying the Slug-worm, and give evi- 
dence thereof to the satisfaction of the trustees. 

3. To the person who shall produce the largest quantity 
of wool, meat and tallow, from the smallest number of sheep 
not less than ten, raised on his own farm, a premium of thir- 
ty dollars ; to be claimed on or before the 1st day of Au- 
gust, i 814. 

4. To the person who shall invent a cheap method of 
raising water, for the purpose of irrigating land from rivers 
and ponds from ten to twenty feet above the level of the same, 
and give evidence thereof to the satisfaction of the trustees 
on or before January 1, 1814, one hundred dollars, or the 
society's gold medal. 

5. To the person who shall present to this society the 
most complete (being nearly complete) Hortus Siccus, exhib- 
iting distinct specimens of the greatest variety of grasses, in 
general use, and specify, to the satisfaction of the trustees 
their respective qualities, productiveness, and usefulness as 
food for different kinds of animals, the gold medal, and fifty 
dollars ; to be claimed on or before the 1st day of October, 
1814. 

6. To the person who shall produce, from seed, the best 
growth of thrifty trees, not less than 600 in the whole, aad 
in the proportion of 2400 to the acre, of any of the following 
kinds of forest trees, viz. oak, ash, elm, sugar maple, beech, 
black or yellow birch, chesnut, walnut or hickory, twenty- 
Jive dollars ; if all of oak, fifty dollars. Claims to be made 

on or before the 1st of October, 1814 

7. To the person who shall ascertain by accurate analy- 
sis, the constituent parts of several fertile soils respectively, 
and in like manner the parts of several poor soils, and thus 



shall discover the defects of the latter ; and shall show by 
actual experiments how the said defects may be remedied by 
the addition of earths or other ingredients which abound in the 
country, and in a manner that may be practised by common 
farmers, jifty dollars. And if it shall apoear to the satisfac- 
tion of the trustees, that, upon an extensive practice, the im- 
provement of the poor soil would be more than equivalent to 
the expense of the improvement, the addition of one hundred 
dollars. A minute description of the several soils, and all 
the circumstances attending the processes, cultivation, and 
results, will be required. Claims to be made on or before 
November 1, 1814. 

8. To the person who shall, by actual experiment, on 
a quality not less than half a ton, shew the best method of 
curing clover hay with salt ; regard to be had to the quality 
of the hay, and the saving of labour, and the shortness of time 
between cutting and packing it in the mow, the silver medal, 
or thirty dollars ; and to the person who shall shew the next 
best method, twenty dollars. Samples of the hay to be ex- 
hibited, three months after it is cured, to a majority of the 
selectmen, or to the settled minister and justice of the peace 
in the vicinity. Claims to be made on or before the last Fri- 
day of November, 1812. 

9. To the person who shall give the most satisfactory 
account, verified by experiments, of the effect of ploughing 
in green crops for manure,nor not less than two acres, the sil- 
ver medal, or thirty dollars. Accounts with certificates, to 
be produced on or before the first Tuesday in March, 1812. 

10. To the person who shall lay before the Board, the most 
satisfactory account of the application and effect of manures, 
verified by practical experiments, on not less than one acre 
for each sort of manure, the silver medal, or thirty dollars. 
To be produced on or before the first Tuesday in December, 
1813. 

11. It is required that the communications, for which the 
foregoing premiums are offered, be accompanied with proper 
certificates from the selectmen, magistrates, or clergymen of 
the vicinity, or other vouchers, to the satisfaction of the 
trustees ; that they be delivered without names, or any inti- 
mation to whom they belong; and that they be severally 
marked in such manner as each claimant shall think fit ; the 
claimant sending also a paper, sealed up, having on the out- 
side a corresponding mark, and on the inside his name and ad- 
dress. 

RICHARD SULLIVAN, Refg. Secretary. 



PREFACE. 



THE Trustees of the Massachusetts Society for 
promoting Agriculture, present to the Public a new 
edition of an old and valuable work on the various 
branches of Agriculture. This Treatise has been 
out of print many years. It was published by the 
author, (the Rev. Dr. Jared Eliot, of Killing- 
worth, in Connecticut,) in 1747, under the title of 
" Essays on Fidd Husbandry, wrote from a Journal 
of thirty years experience " 

The Trustees consider these Essays as highly 
valuable to the Agricultural Interest of the North- 
ern States. They relate to facts, which have, in 
many instances, been verified, since the author ceas- 
ed from his labours. The distribution of them 
through the Country may be more useful than the 
communication of extracts from foreign publications, 
and will preserve the memory of a man, who has 
deserved well of his country. 

These Essays are very diffuse, and state the 
general practice of Agriculturalists in the author's 
day. Respecting the culture of foreign and domes- 
tic Grasses and Grain, he is verv minute. Millet, 



6] 
though called by the author an ordinary species of 
grain, is noticed as of much importance, is very pro- 
ductive, and good food for hogs and poultry, and is 
recommended strongly as a grass crop. It has how- 
ever been generally neglected, and perhaps for want 
of fair experiments. 

These Essays display, by a variety of experi- 
ments, the importance of draining swamps and wet 
meadow land. It is universally acknowledged, at 
the present day, that the best and most productive 
lands are useless from stagnant water. In this con- 
dition they contribute greatly, if not principally, to 
the propagation and continuance of the most fatal 
autumnal diseases, which this country experiences. 
W hereas, if those lands were drained and cultivated, 
thev Would, in a short time, become the most val- 
uable in the country ; the pestilential effluvia, 
which is so extremely fatal every year, would no 
longer arise from them, and a noxious waste would 
thus be converted into fruitful fields. 

The very ingenious paper, from the Hon. Sam- 
uel Tenny, of New-Hampshire, relative to Orch- 
ards, deserves the particular attention of every intel- 
ligent farmer, as well as gardener. His advice res- 
pecting the cultivation of Apple Trees, which is 
equally applicable to other fruit trees, cannot be too 
often read, nor too strongly recommended. 

The Trustees are convinced from observation, 
that Agriculture, in almost every branch, has been 
much improved since their first publication in 1793. 
Whether these improvements have been effected by 



7 

their publications or not, is of little consequence to 
the members of this Society. The good of the com- 
munity has been their only aim. No private emol- 
ument or advantage has been received, or expected, 
but in common with the great family of mankind. 

The manufacture of Butter and Cheese, has 
been greatly improved. The breed of Cattle and of 
Sheep, has been more attended to than formerlv. 
The Trustees feel the highest satisfaction, in having 
offered the first premium (ot;0 dollars) for encour- 
aging the importation of Merino Sheep, which, with 
the high price of the animal in the market, after his 
value was known, induced merchants to import them 
into every part of the United States. 

The Trustees received last autumn, a small 
parcel of a new species of Wheat, from a friend in 
Europe. Its stalk is solid, and is supposed to be 
proof against the Hessian fly. They have received 
also from the same hand, a large species of white 
Rye. Both have been distributed in the country, 
and will, another year, it is hoped, be found to have 
succeeded. 

Boston, 181 L 



ESSAYS 

UPON 

FIELD-HUSBANDRY. 



PART I. 



IT is not an hundred and thirty years since the 
first settlement of New- England, and much less than 
that since the greater part hath been planted. 

When we consider the small number of the first 
settlers, and coming from an old cultivated country, 
to thick woods, rough unimproved lands ; where all 
their former experience and knowledge was now of 
very little service to them : they were destitute of 
beasts of burthen or carriage ; unskilled in every part 
of service to be done : it may be said, that in a sort, 
they began the world anew. 

When we consider these things, the progress that 
hath been made in so short a time is very wonderful. 

For some time after the country was settled, they 
had no cattle at all ; when some were brought over 3 
what with bad hay they provided, it being cut upon 
bog meadow, the multitude of wolves and other beasts 
of prey, for sundry years they were kept so low and 
had so few cattle, that the common price for a grown 
bullock was twenty pounds sterling, which is equal- 
to two hundred pounds old tenor. 

I remember when I was a boy, I heard a very 
ancient woman of good credit say, that she had seen 
twenty broad pieces paid down for a two year old 
heifer, which is now equal to two hundred and fifty 
pounds old tenor. 



o 



10 

Although the progress we have made be very 
considerable, our country yet needs and is capable of 
greater improvement in the management of our lands ; 
of which 1 design to consider in several sorts. 

1. Those coves and swamps that are adjoining to 
salt marsh, which lie so fiat and low that they cannot 
be drained : I have seen sundry such places upon the 
sea coast. I have such a piece of ground, which I 
am obliged to fence in, in order to inclose some other 
land ; which put me upon thought of trying to make 
something of it, it being now wholly unprofitable. 

Last fall I began upon it and drew a ditch of four 
feet wide from a large salt creek, and carried it up in 
the middle of the cove seventy rods, in order to turn 
it into salt meadow, that being the best that I could 
do with it. It so far answers the design, that the tide 
flows regularly into it, to the upper end of it ; the tide 
now flowing, where I suppose it never reached before. 
There must be smaller ditches on each side, to cut 
off the fresh springs, and small grips cut from the 
great ditch in sundry places, that so the salt water 
may be spread and communicated to all parts of it. 

The lower part next the salt marsh is rushes, the 
next are reeds, then large brakes and bushes, and last 
of all a thick swamp. If this land can be converted 
into salt meadow, it will be much cheaper than to 
purchase so much salt marsh, and will lie very 
convenient to my other land. 

Salt water will effectually kill trees and bushes 
where it comes, both root and branch. 

2. The second sort of land that I shall consider, is, 
the low sunken lands, which have no communication 
with the salt marsh : of this sort there are three kinds, 
viz. thick swamp, boggy meadow, and smooth, even, 
shaking meadow ; this last sort is called cramberry 
marsh : he that would do any thing to effect with 



11 

either of these sorts, must in the first place sec 
whether there be deep mire ; if it be shallow and soon 
come to hard sand, clay, or gravel, it will not be worth 
while to expend cost upon it. 

Again, you must examine what fall there is. If the 
fall be apparent to the eye, and this for ten or fifteen 
rods, you may be satisfied ; if you are uncertain, try it 
with a water level or spirit level. If your marsh be 
small, the drein long, rocky, and likely to be charge- 
able, it may be best to let it alone ; but if it be a 
large swamp or meadow, although the main drain 
should be a considerable charge, that should be no 
discouragement. 

That low ground which is thick with wood and 
brush, will be the most chargeable ; the bog meadow 
the next in charge, because the bogs must be cut 
up with a bog plough or with a hoe ; either way is 
chargeable. The shaking meadow has the best surface 
and is easiest to bring to mowing. 

Last August was twelve month I began to drein a 
pond that lies but a mile from my house ; it was not a 
natural pond, but made so upon design. Our record 
informs that it was granted to a man to prevent the 
miring of cattle ; the owner of it laid it under water 
about eighty years ago. It was over grown with pond 
lillies ; it was thought by most that to drein it was 
impracticable. Some said, that it was as unlikely as 
to drain the ocean. At the outlet there seemed to be 
little or no fall ; but trying it with a level, my son 
and I found that in forty rods there was fall sufficient. 
We therefore set about dreining it, have succeeded so 
far that it bids fair to make a good piece of land. It 
had been under water so long, and was so full of pond 
lilly roots, that when the water was drawn off and the 
lilly roots dried and shrunk up, it grew to be puffy, 
and did not for this reason do so well as we expected : 
The grass seed did not come up well, nor stand so 



12 

well as in land that has lain open to the heat of the sISn. 
The whole pond was about twenty acres, and the 
soil is eight or ten feet deep ; there are in it many 
large springs, which are fifteen feet deep. 

I began last March to drein another meadow of 
forty acres, up in Guilford woods ; this was a shak- 
ing meadow ; a man standing upon it might shake 
the ground several rods round him. It seemed to be 
only a strong sward of grass roots laid over a soft 
mud of the consistence of Pancake- batter ; there was 
not abundance of bushes in it, but abundance of 
cramberry vines, and a great burthen of poor wild 
grass. The meadow was deemed so poor that none 
would take it up. I was pitied as being about to 
waste a great deal of money ; but they comforted' 
themselves that if I spent it unprofitably, others that 
stood in need of it would get it. They are noAv of 
another opinion. 

At the only outlet of this meadow, there was fall 
sufficient, but very rocky ; we must dig four or five 
feet deep to get the advantage of it. 

In March when I went up to make the outlet drein, 
there was such a torrent of water that we could do 
nothing. I ordered therefore a tree to be cut down 
across the brook, and prepared flitches instead of 
plank which we set aslant, the upper end resting upon 
the staddle that was fallen across the brook, laid them 
as close as we could, and stopped the chinks and 
large chasms with top tow, by which means we shut 
the water into the meadow, then wrought at the trench 
or main drein in the day, and let it out at night, till 
it was in a good measure accomplished. When I 
ordered the top-tow to be carried, the men wondered 
what it was designed for, but when they saw how 
useful it wa^s in making a cheap dam, they were 
pleased with it. I put them in mind of the Dutch 
proverb, which says of things that are very mean, 
Thnt Something is always good for something: 



13 

When the weather grew sufficiently warm and the 
meadow a little settled, we began to ditch. 1 cut a 
ditch on each side and one in the middle. As far as 
we went it soon rendered the meadow firm and dry ; 
I then proceeded to sow grass seei\ such as red clo- 
ver, foul meadow grass, English spear grass, and herd 
grass. Of all the sorts of grass seed I sowed, none 
6eemed to take hold and come up so well as red clo- 
ver-; this I found to be the boldest and most hardy 
grass. 

Where the sward was strong, although the clover 
came up well, yet what with the toughness of the 
ground and the overtopping growth of the wild natural 
grass, the clover made but slow progress till the fall of 
the year, and then it mended considerably* - But 
where there happened to be no sward to hinder it, the 
clover grew up to the height of mid thigh, went tc 
;>eed, and ripened. 

Of the other sorts of grass came up but poorly ; 
the land I suppose was too new and too tough for iL 

Some time in September, I ploughed up a piece of 
it where I had not sowed any grass seed, it ploughed 
very tough, and the cattle mired some, but we kept 
them upon the grass as well a,s we could ; after ail 
we left many baulks. About a month after I set 
some men to hoe up the baulks, and was agreeably 
surprised to find how easy it hoed up. I find the 
meadow rotted and mellowed more in one month in 
the fall than it had done in the whole summer. The 
same I found by the ditch banks. If I had omitted 
my ploughing till a month later, it had been done 
with much more ease to man and beast. 

In July I sowed a little piece of turnips, they came 
up but never grew till the ground began to rot in the 
fail of the year, then grew well in the short time they 
had left. I expected they would have been rank, but 
they were good and sweet, 



14 

Some are deterred from such an undertaking as 
that of dreining their land, by reason of the great 
charge. They terrify themselves without reason* 
When I was about to cut my main drein, some 
thought it impossible, but at best it would cost an 
hunderd pounds. It was a bad place of rocks ; some 
I dug up, some we broke up with steel wedges, and 
some we blew up with powder ; but after all it did 
not cost more than twenty pounds. 

As to the great charge of ditching, they do not 
consider that the outside ditches serve for fence, as 
well as to cut off the springs and drein the meadow, 
and it is as cheap fence as any we can make ; so that 
there is none but the middle or intermediate ditches, 
that are properly to be considered as a charge in drein - 
Ing. 

Some may think this long history of two pieces of 
meadow, this tedious detail of so many minute par- 
lars to be needless, trifling and impertinent. 

I have been particular in describing the main or 
on tfet drein of each meadow, that it may be seen 
that the difficulty of rocks is not insuperable, nor the 
charge of a long drein intolerable. 

I mention the cheap moveable dam which may be 
made in a few hours, that if they should be incum- 
bered with water to hinder their work, there is a rem- 
edy at hand. 

I informed you of the growth of one of the mead- 
ows that it was moss and pond lillies, which will soon 
die when the water is gone ; the moss creates the 
most trouble, but will burn when it is a dry season. 

I gave an account of the depth of the soil, because 
I was when I began, uncertain whether by ditches 
three feet wide and two and an half deep (such as mine 
are) would be sufficient to fix the shaking meadow, 



15 

and render the deep mire firm and dry enough for 
grass and tillage. I think there is reason to believe 
that the shaking meadows have been formerly beaver 
ponds. 

I described the extent and bigness of each meadow, 
because I was uncertain whether the ditches would 
drien well when they were very long. 

Some of mine are an hundred and fifty rods long, 
and must be yet much longer ; yet as far as we have 
gone, they draw well. In order to have them draw 
well and run free, it is absolutely needful, and a main 
point, to have your outlet drein deep, so that the 
water run briskly. 

If the ditches draw well, there is another advan- 
tage ; in the spring, when there is much water, by 
stopping one ditch, you may shift the water into ano- 
ther, to cleanse it, and so to a third. Hereby you 
will save the charge of the yearly scouring of them 
with the shovel, which is a good saving, I find by 
experience I have that advantage. 

I have insisted the longer upon this article, it being 
an affair of importance. If it should answer our ex- 
pectation, it will put us into the improvement of land 
of which as yet we have had no benefit ; nay, it has 
been rather hurtful. It opens to us a new scene, and 
time may possibly discover it to be the easiest of til- 
lage, the richest and best land. 

By the working of my own mind I judge of others ; 
however, if I have been mistaken, and that which is 
uncertain to me, is clear and easy to others, and so 
have been longer upon this particular than is needful 
or useful ; I beg pardon of the reader. 

When I engaged in this affair, it was with some 
mistrust and uncertainty. I am sure, last year I should, 
have been glad of such an history of facts, (as im- 
perfect as it is,) it would have afforded me light, 
courage and instruction* 



16 

As to what remains farther to be done, I should be, 
glad to meet with an experienced person to give me 
instruction. Our reasonings and speculations without 
experience are delusory and uncertain. It used to 
be the saying of an old man, that an ounce of experi- 
ence is better than a pound of science. 

In a country where such like dreining is become a 
common practice, such an account as I have given, 
would be needless. 

I find by experience, that such dreined land must 
have one summer to ferment and rot, so as to become- 
proper soil, before it will be fit for grain and every 
sort of grass. If I had sowed red clover instead of 
the other sorts of grass, I had saved five pound in 
seed. Clover outdid my expectation, and the other 
sorts fell short of it. If others save where I lost, and 
mend wherein I was mistaken, It answers my design 
in writing, 

By a little experience we have had of these dreined 
lands, we find they will produce Indian corn, sixty or 
seventy bushels to the acre, and flax. If life and 
health be continued, I design to try liquorice roots* 
barley, Cape Breton wheat, cotton, indigo seed, and 
wood for dying, which I have sent for, as also water 
melon seed, which came originally from Archangel, in 
Russia which is said produces melons which grow 
to a great size. But what I have principally in view 
is hemp. New- England doth not, I suppose, expend 
less than several hundred thousand pounds worth of 
foreign hemp yearly. If we can raise more than to 
supply our own occasions, we may send it home. I 
remember when I was young, a gentleman came 
from England, sent over by the King, to invite the 
country into that trade ; he offered in the King's 
name to find seed to begin with, and four pence ster- 
ling per pound, let us raise what we would, (which is 



17 

three and four pence old tenor,) and if I remember 
right, forty shillings bounty on every ton. 

It is not a mere conjecture that the dreined lands 
will produce hemp. I am informed by my worthy 
friend Benjamin Franklin, Esq. of Philadelphia, that 
they raise hemp upon their dreined lands. 

Hemp requires such very strong land to produce it, 
that it would consume all our dung to raise it in any 
great quantities ; so that we should not be able to raise 
bread corn : therefore, how inviting so ever the 
trade is, and how great so ever the encouragements 
have been, both from home and by our own govern- 
ments, we have not as yet engaged in that aifair : we 
have now a promising prospect of success in these 
dreined lands ; what may be the issue, time and 
experience must determine. 

The books of husbandry say, that a thousand 
weight to the acre is an ordinary crop of hemp. 

If a man had a small meadow of dreined land, that 
he could lay under water and draw it off at his pleasure 
to water his hemp, it would, I fancy, be of great 
value. I have heard that a man in the Jersies, hath 
such a meadow of half an acre, which yields him as 
much hemp yearly, as fetches him fifty pounds York 
money ; but this seems incredible. 

Some think that it is good to lay their low lands 
under water in the winter to enrich them, and practise 
accordingly ; but this will kill your English grass 
after a few years ; for English grass will not subsist 
without a winter. In the southern colonies the less 
winter the less grass. In Virginia, North and South 
Carolina, they have no English grass at all. Where 
there is no English grass, it is difficult to make cattle 
truly fat ; so that winter brings its good as well as its 
evil things. 

3. The third sort of land I would speak of, is our 
old land which we have ivorn out. This is a difficult 
3 



18 

article without dung, which cannot be had for love or 
monev : where that is wanting, it may be supplied 
with other manure. Clay will mend sandy land, 
especially if the clay be burnt ; and sand will mend 
clay ground. The clay will fix the too loose con- 
texture of the sand, and sand will open the parts of 
clay which is too close. 

I found at my farm at Guilford, a sort of shell sand, 
tried it, and found it equal to good dung ; some that 
I ordered to be carried up on the tilled land, has 
produced five crops, and is not yet spent ; how long 
it will last we do not know. They begin to carry it 
up into the town. 

I have carted this fall upon my land at home some 
loads of creek mud, that had been laid up a rotting 
two years : I also carted home one load from the 
dreined pond ; it looks like dung ; also one load of 
clay, one load of sand, and a load of loam. What all 
or any of these will do, experience must inform. 

Another way to help worn out land, is to sow it 
with clover seed ; but if the land be too poor it will 
not grow : therefore, if we can raise our Indian corn 
upon our dreined land, then we may spare a sprinkling 
of dung for our old poor land ; then sow it with ten 
pounds of clover seed, which is five quarts to the acre ; 
it might cause it to set very thick. Ten pounds is not 
too much. He that raiseth clover hay, need not be 
afraid of the expense of seed ; for an acre of clover 
will yield two bushels of clean seed : the second 
crop of clover is the best for seed : so that in getting 
seed, you have no need to spoil your best crop of hay ; 
as we know what threshing will do, it spoils the hay 
in a great measure. 

If you depend upon the second crop of red clover 
for your seed, the land must be very rich, and you 
must mow your first crop eady. There is so much 
profit in clover grass, that it is strange it is so much 



19 

neglected. As seed sells now, that is twelve shillings 
a quart, an acre of good clover will make thirty five 
pounds old tenor. There is no charge about it but 
only the price of the seed, mowing and cleansing the 
seed, which is done with a great deal of ease, in a 
way that deserves to be made public. 

If seeding the land with clover will not make poor 
land rich, yet it will prevent our better land from 
being worn out ; and by ploughing in a good coat 
of white clover, the land would be prepared for a 
crop of wheat. 

Seeding the land when we lay it down is of so much 
importance for present profit and future advantage, 
that it is a settled opinion at the Isle of Wight, that 
if they should Jail but for one year to seed their land 
for grass, it would be to their damage more than twenty 
thousand pounds sterling. 

Another way of mending poor land, is, by feeding 
it close a few years with sheep, to destroy the briars, 
weeds and mangy grass : this hath succeeded to 
bring in the English grass and make a strong sward. 

It will be best to take out the sheep at the latter 
end of August, that so what English grass there is, 
may make coat for the ground before winter, and 
then shut it up that it may not be fed. By the end 
of August the wild trash has done growing. 

In England, to recover their poor land, they direct 
to sow their land with turnips, and at winter put their 
sheep upon it ; and they will live a while upon the 
tops and then scoop out the turnip itself ; by that 
time the land with the sheep dung will be rich enough 
for barley in the spring. But our poor land is so 
poor that it will not bear turnips bigger than buttons. 
This method looks likely, if tried, to make rich land 
richer. Some propose to sow oats and when grown 
up plough them in. 



20 

4. I designed to write something concerning our 
poor rough, stony, uneven land in the woods, which 
is now of little service to us. I would propose a way 
how it might be improved so as to become useful 
and profitable land, which I proposed to submit to 
the reader's better judgment : but finding that I have 
already gone a greater length than I at first designed, 
it must be omitted. 

A barrel of cider of sweet apples when made into 
molasses, will be worth three pounds, abating five 
shillings for the making, when cider made of common 
apples, a barrel will be worth but twenty shillings, 
exclusive of the barrel. 

Thave been told that half a peck of the little round 
white beans mixed with a bushel of rye, will make 
bread something like wheat ; I have never tried it, 
but design to see what it will do. 

I have been told that summer wheat sowed with 
barley is not apt to blast, and do well together ; also 
summer rye and oats : as also oats and peas produce 
a good crop when sowed together ; the oats bearing 
up the pea vines prevent their falling to the ground. 

I find by experience the best time to fatten swine, 
is to begin at the first of August ; , if you have old corn : 
Hogs will fat slowly in very cold weather ; they will 
eat much and fatten but little : if you make a very 
warm house they heat in bed and catch cold when 
they come out into the cold air. 

To save corn, steep it in water or swill till the 
corn grow very soft ; this opens the parts : give 
them the corn to eat and the water to drink in which 
the corn has been steeped : the hard dry corn, a 
great deal of it, passeth through them undigested ; 
this is the hardest part of the corn and that which 
principally makes the flour. There is a tradition, 
that if you feed one hog with corn, the dung of the 
first hog will fat another hog, and his dung a third. 



21 

Although I believe the story to be fabulous, yet it 
serves to shew that the sense of mankind, is, that in 
the manner we feed swine, there is a great deal of 
loss. 

I took the hint of steeping corn, from the advantage 
I once found by some corn I bought that had been 
ship wrecked, had lain in the water till it was grown 
soft. 

Such is the difference in corn and in swine, that it 
is impossible to fix it absolutely and know certainly 
how much there is saved by this method. It is better 
than grinding, besides what we save in the toll and 
the time and charge of the carriage : for it is found 
by experience, that even bran when steeped in water 
a long time is much the better. 

I asked an honest, judicious neighbor of mine, who 
had leisure to try this method of steeping corn longer 
and with more exactness than I had done, how much 
he thought was saved by it ? he said, at least one 
bushel in seven ; he believed more. But we will 
suppose it saves but. a tenth part, then see how much 
it will save in the whole colony ? Suppose there are 
in this colony, about sixty towns, great and small, 
new and old : we will suppose two hundred families 
in each town, one with another, and each family to 
consume or spend as much pork as will require one 
with another twenty bushels of corn to make the pork 
for each family. Sixty towns of two hundred families 
each, makes twelve thousand families, and twenty 
bushels of- corn to each family, makes two hundred 
forty thousand bushels of corn : the tenth part of this 
is twenty four thousand bushels. If there be not so 
many towns and families as is supposed, there is 
much pork fatted and sent away in barrels, and many 
herds of fat swine drove away that are not consumed 
in the government, enough to make it up ; and surely 



22 

the saving of twenty four thousand bushels of corn 
yearly, is worthy of our care and consideration. 

Since the foregoing was written, a person of good 
credit informed me, that there being in his neighbor- 
hood a dealer in horses, who was famous for skill in 
making horses fat in a short time ; he desired the 
jockey to tell him how he did it : the secret was to 
mix Indian corn and oats together and soak it in 
water till it was soft ; that in cold weather he steeped 
it in a cellar that it might be kept from freezing. 

My informant told me, he had made trial of it and 
found it did well, giving it to his horse in the same 
proportion as he was wont to do of dry provender. 

An handful of dry ashes put upon each hill of 
Indian corn, in some land, has been found to do 
good equal to dunging in the hole : some say there 
ought to be half a pint of ashes to each hill, and it 
should be put on a little after the corn is come up. 

I was told by an experienced farmer, that if you 
girdle trees, or cut brush in the months of May, 
June and July, in the old of the moon, that day the 
sign removes out of the foot into the head, especially 
if the day be cloudy, it will kill almost all before it : 
they will bleed, he said, more freely in a cloudy day ; 
for the hot sun dries up the sap. I have never tried it. 
If this could be certainly found out, it would expedite 
the cleaning land and save a great deal of labor. But 
experience is authority to whom we are to submit : 
I am not forward to believe without trial. 

Swamps that are full of wood and brush, and 
covered with moss, if they are deep soil and can be 
well dreined, cleared and ditched, will make good 
land for corn and grass. 

Elder bushes are stubborn and hard to subdue, 
yet , I know by experience that mowing them five 
times in a year w T ill kill them. 



23 

It might serve to increase useful knowledge, if 
something of this nature were published every year, 
giving a faithful account of the success of all the 
experiments and trials that may be made on various 
sorts of land, and of divers sorts of grain, roots, grass 
and fruits, not only such as we have in use, but also 
what we have not as yet introduced among us. 

There are few men of business, ingenuity and 
observation, but what have found out things valuable 
and useful, but for want of some proper method to 
communicate them, they die with the discoveries, 
and are lost to mankind. 

Therefore, whoever has made any observations or 
discoveries, although it be but a hint, and looks like a 
small matter, yet if pursued and improved, may be 
of public service. If they see cause to favor me with 
such discoveries and experiments as they have or 
shall make, I shall receive it with thankfulness, and 
publish it either with or without their names to it, as 
they shall see fit : for if this Essay should be thought 
useful, if God give life and health I purpose next 
year to furnish you with another winter's evening 
entertainment : for I would be glad to do good as far 
as lies in my power. 

A discovery of the nature and property of things, 
and applying them to useful purposes, is true phi- 
losophy. A great deal of what has passed in the 
world for learning, is philosophy falsely so called. 

A certain person among the Greeks, being a 
candidate for some office in the state, it was objected 
against him, that he was no scholar. True, saith he, 
according to your notion of learning, I am not ; but 
I know how to make a poor city rich, and a small 
city great. 

The world was a long time amused with the 
learning of Aristotle, and the Arabians spun out of 
their own brains, and not founded in truth ; yet 



24 

among all this trumpery there was two pieces of useful 
knowledge, for which we are indebted to them ; one 
was the knowledge of the nine figures, so useful in 
arithmetic ; the other was the first rudiments of 
algebra, now grown up to a great height. Experi- 
mental philosophy being founded in nature and truth, 
is obtained no way but by time and diligence : The 
knowledge of things useful are gained by little & little. 

We are not to admire or despise things merely 
because they are new ; but value things or disregard 
them just so far as they are found (by experience 
that faithful instructor) to be useful or unprofitable. 
Wisdom is profitable to direct. 

Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wis- 
dom ; especially that wisdom that is from above : it 
is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be en- 
treated, full of mercy and good fruits ; without 
partiality and without hypocrisy. 

There are some pieces of pasture land wholly des- 
titute of water, which renders them less useful and 
valuable. It is known that frequently springs are 
nearer the surface on hills than in plains : therefore, 
to remedy this inconvenience, dig a well on the brow 
of an hill ; when you come to water, stone it over, or 
stone it up ; then dig a trench in the side of the hill 
to reach to the bottom of the well : stone up your 
trench and cover it with earth ; or a trough may 
answer the end when buried in the ground. Where 
the water issues out, there dig a watering place. 

Since the foregoing pages were written, I have 
made trial of ditching in swamp land when the ground 
was frozen two inches deep : it is performed with a 
broad axe having a long helve, with which 'we cut 
the ground, roots of brakes and bushes, with speed 
and success. 



25 

You must have an iron hook with two or three 
teeth set in a handle, to draw out the sods when they 
are cut. 

The laborer works clean and dry. You cannot 
conveniently make the ditch quite half the proper 
depth ; the rest must be left till summer to be fin- 
ished. If we could do half our ditching in the winter, 
it would be a good saving. 

Under the article of ways to mend old worn out 
land, sowing it with red clover, some may wonder to 
find it there said, that five quarts was a proper propor- 
tion of seed, when it hath been found by experience 
that two quarts to the acre will produce a good burthen $ 
It is true ; but you will find when the crop is carried 
off, that the roots will be at a great distance from each 
other ; nor will these void spaces fill up till the clover 
is run out its period : whereas it would quit cost in 
feed and after crops, to seed so much that the grass 
may set thick. It was not proposed to use so much 
seed to the acre, till in the common method we have a 
plenty of seed. 

What is here written is but a foundation laid for 
a future and more agreeable superstructure. Having 
prepared a sort of land that has been but little in use 
among us, I propose to have a new sort of improve- 
ment. 

N. B. What hath been inserted in this essay only 
upon hearsay, is not offered as certainly to be de- 
pended upon ; but only as probable and worthy to be 
tried, 4 



26 

PART II. 

THE last years essay having met with a more . 
favorable reception than I expected, fifty of the last 
years essay (if it should bear another impression, and 
as many of this present essay) having been lately sent 
for by B. Franklin, Esq. of Philadelphia, a person of 
merit and learning ; being encouraged by him, as 
also by other gentlemen in these parts, of worth, capa- 
city and learning, on whose judgment I depend more 
than my own ; therefore, agriculture being a profes- 
sion so useful to mankind, that notwithstanding it 
hath from its vast variety of depending objects very 
numerous uncertainties attending it, I shall proceed 
to make the best of such a difficult subject, in which 
times and seasons make such great alterations. 

When our fore- fathers settled here, they entered a 
land which probably never had been ploughed since 
t^ie creation ; the land being new they depended upon 
the natural fertility of the ground, which served their 
purpose very well, and when they had worn out one 
piece they cleared another, without any concern to 
amend their land, except a little helped by the fold 
and cart- dung, whereas in England they would think 
a man a bad husband, if he should pertend to sow 
wheat on land without any dressing. 

Sometimes they dress land with lime, chalk, soot ; 
sometimes with rags, hogs and catties hair, horn- 
shavings and ashes, and with various other sorts of 
manure by which means they have fine crops of wheat 
upon land which hath been improved more than a 
thousand years ; for they reckon twenty bushels to 
the acre but a middling crop. 

* Our lands being thus worn out, I suppose to be 
one reason why so many are inclined to remove to new 
places that they may raisr wheat; as also that they 
may have more room, thinking that we live too thick. 



27 

Now whether I have assigned the true reasons or 
causes of the present diffieulties under which many 
parts of the country suffer, is submitted to the censure 
of the judicious reader : the matters of fact are cer- 
tain, whatever becomes of the reasons assigned : for 
if all men cannot judge, yet all men can feel. 

Every observing reader of history must have taken 
notice of the account given of great numbers of people 
living oil and having their subsistance from very small 
parcels of land, and mighty armies are raised from a 
small territory, which is to the surprise and admiration 
of the reader ; which will afford a great rariety of 
useful reflections. 

The children of Israel were very numerous con- 
sidering the smallness of the land of Canaan, as will 
appear by the list given in to king David, consequent 
upon his command to have the people numbered : 
More particularly what will shew the populousness of 
that land, is what we read, 2 Chron. xiii. 3 : And 
Abijah set the battle in array, with an army of valiant 
men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen 
men : Jeroboam also set the battle in array against 
him with eight hundred thousand chosen men. It 
is true, their militia was formed as ours, of the body 
'of the people, from sixteen years old to sixty, yet this 
seemed to be a collection of only their best men and 
the flower of their military force ; they were chosen 
men, men of valor, neither old men, sick persons, nor 
new married men, who were exempted by law, 
cowards, or cripples ; of which there must be great 
numbers, besides women and children, who have 
mouths to eat, though they had neither hands nor 
strength to light. This Holy Land was an inland 
country, not supported by trade, but supplied by the 
product of their own land. 

England is a small country, compared with France, 
Germany and Russia, yet the Holy Land from Dan 



28 

to Beersheba wns not more than equal to one third 
part of England : the two capital or royal cities, viz. 
Samaria and Jerusalem, were not fifty miles distant 
from each other. 

Again, the old Romans lived upon small shreds of 
land : The Roman History informs us of the quan- 
tity of land there was in the whole farms of even the 
foremost men and men of the first figure and highest 
rank in their whole commonwealth. Manius Curius 
Dentatatus was three times chosen Consul, which was 
the highest ordinary office in the State ; led the Ro- 
man army, fought with and entirely routed Pyrrhus, 
drove him out of the country, and had a triumprrfor 
his victory : The whole of this great man's farm on 
which he lived, and from which he drew his whole 
subsistence, was no more than seven Roman jugera, 
which is about four acres and an half; being offered 
more by the government, he refused it, saying, that 
he was an ambitious and dangerous person who was 
not content with, or should desire more than seven 
jugera. 

The same Roman History informs of Lucius 
Quinctius Cincinnatus, that he was consul of Rome 
459 years before Christ : He was also in a time of 
great danger chosen Dictator, who by his office was 
above all other magistracy, he was invested with 
sovereign and supreme power, both civil and mili- 
tary : In this exigency of the State, he raised armies, 
marched against the enemy, subdued them, made 
them pass under the yoke, as a token of subjection, 
triumphed for his victory, and all this in sixteen days ; 
laid down his great office and returned home to his 
little farm, which consisted but of two acres and a 
quarter of land. His farm was originally seven 
jugera, but to pay a debt which his son had contract- 
ed, he had been obliged to sell the one half of it; 



29 

Nor is he the only good provident father consumed 
and wasted by a rakish spendthrift son. 

When I first read these accounts, I concluded that 
these small tracts of land were situated and circum- 
stanced like the Garden Ground near the city of Lon- 
don, where two or three acres will support a family : 
But upon further reading, I found this seven jugera 
was the whole share of a commoner. 

From these scraps of history we may collect and 
conclude, that a little good land will support a family ; 
and that to make it yield so much, they must have 
had an art and skill to which we are strangers : To 
attain that skill which is lost, or to find out some- » 
thing now to substitute in the room, is our proper 
business, and is the design of this essay. 

Mr. Ellis, in his book of Husbandry, tells us, that 
the small tenements or little farms in England, which 
formerly would afford keeping but for one cow, are 
now so improved by sowing colworts, clover, and 
other sorts of grass, that now they will maintain a 
dairy of ten cows. He also tells us that a farmer 
made sixty pounds sterling from one acre of carrots. 

But it will be said that Canaan and Italy were 
known to be very rich land. It is granted, but 
whether they were so by art or nature is not certain. 
Canaan was a land peculiarly blessed of God, with 
much rains, fruitful seasons, and good government ; 
without which husbandry will not flourish. It is 
now well known, that these two countries, one is un- 
der the Turk, and the other under the Pope, are poor 
and in a wretched condition. 

Mr. Addison informs us, that Campania, that in 
the time of the old Romans was esteemed as the 
Garden of Italy, is now good for nothing ; for want 
of good husbandry the water stagnates, and corrupts 
to that degree, and is thereby rendered so unhealthy, 
that he supposeth if men were disposed to improve it 



30 

they could not live long enough there to dreui and 
bring it into order. 

The reader will see what use we are to make of 
history, and in what manner to improve it : for if we 
only read the story without making reflections or 
improvement, religious, natural or political; if we 
read only as a mere amusement, without turning and 
improving the various incidents to some useful pur- 
poses, I cannot see why a romance might not be as 
good, or better, than a true history. As now. 

When we read of the extent and grandeur of the 
Roman Empire, what is that to me, whether it was 
great or small, unless I observe at the same time I 
read of their greatness, I consider the ways and means 
by which they advanced to make such a shining fig- 
ure in the world ? That which rendered them so illus- 
trious was their virtue, their laborious life rendered 
them hardy, their frugality, integrity, but above all 
their matchless love to their countrv, which was their 
reigning passion. 

If I read the history of the battle at Pharsalia, what 
is it to me, whether Pompey beat Caesar, or Caesaf 
overcome Pompey, if I do not observe that the luxury 
of Pompey's army, their confidence in their superior 
numbers, which contributed a great deal to their 
overthrow ? And on the other hand, the care, pru- 
dence and wisdom of Caesar, who told his men, that 
they were going to engage a number of perfumed 
sparks, that would not for the world but carry their 
fine faces home to Rome without wounds or scars ; 
therefore, ordered his men to flash their faces ; his 
soldiers followed the counsel and it succeeded. 

We learn from History that great numbers got 
their living from a little land ; but what were their 
rules of husbandry, and by what art, is in a great 
measure lost. The oldest Roman husbandry that 
has been transmitted down to us, is a book written 



31 

by Cato ; I have not seen it, but it is said doth no 
great honor to the author. The next is Virgil, which 
is a better piece of poetry than a book of husbandry ; 
in which he hath taken more care to embellish his 
poem than to instruct a farmer.* 

The oldest book of English husbandry was wrote 
(as I think) by Lord Chancellor Fortescue, in the 
reign (if I remember right), of Hemy the Seventh. 

The only old rules of husbandry that I have met 
with, I find in the Bible ; and there not professedly 
taught, but only for illustration and by way of com- 
parison : Yet this serves to shew us what was the 
practice of farmers in those days. In the particulars 
there mentioned, the ancient method of husbandry 
we have suggested to us. 

1. The first thing I shall mention is the account giv- 
en of the profit and advantage of Goats. Pro v. 27. 26. 
Lambs are for cloathing, and Goats are for the price 
of the field. They are excellent to subdue rough 
uncultivated land : They are in their nature abun- 
dantly fitted to serve that useful purpose ; they de- 
stroy bushes, briars and weeds : by their tread, their 
dung and urine, which is very hot, they sweetea the 
ground to that degree, as in a little time the land will 
be cloathed with grass ; yet that a piece of land sub- 
dued by them will thereby be doubled in its value or 
price, is what perhaps, hath not been so much thought 
of as would be proper. 

2. The next thing is what we read, in Eccl. xi. 
6. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening 
withhold not thy hand : for thou knowest not whether 
shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both 
shall be alike good. The true intendment and moral 
improvement, is not my present business or design. I 

* The above is not said to depreciate the character or derogate from 
the merits of ihat truely great man ; for a great deal of our pretest 
husbandry is justly called Virgiling. 



32 

remember a farmer of good credit told me, that being 
for some reason obliged to be early, he sowed oats 
at break of day, and had harrowed all in before sun- 
rising : He observed that the oats sowed thus early, 
out-stript the other oats sowed the same day after the 
day was come on, grew six inches taller, had a larger 
head, and appeared every way better, although that 
part of the land which was sowed early, if there was 
any difference, was the poorest side. It is agreeable to 
reason that it should do good : For the dews are im- 
pregnated with nitrous salts, and is the principal thing 
which enrich the ground when it lies fallow ; this 
dew being harrowed in with the seed may promote 
its growth. If the seed were sown in the evening so as 
to lie all night to be soaked and softened with the dew, 
and then harrowed in the morning, thou knowest not 
whether shall prosper, this or that ; it may therefore 
be best to make trial of both ways. I persuaded 
one of my neighbors to make trial of this method in 
sowing mesling this last sowing season. 

3. Another piece of ancient husbandry we have 
an account in Isa. xxviii, 24 — 27. For the fitches 
are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither 
is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin : but the 
fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin 
with a rod. It seems that the wheel was used for 
those sorts of grain which were hard to be separated 
from its chaff, but the fitches and cummin, as they 
might be threshed with a little stick, the wheel was 
needless ; but for those sorts of corn as were hard to 
thresh, to save labor and time, they were wont to do 
it with a cart-wheel, as v, 28. Bread-corn is bruised; 
because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it 
with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horse- 
men. And there is no doubt but that a wheel might 
be so contrived, as to thresh out a great deal of grain 
in a dav. 



33 

The other way mentioned in the text of threshing 
with horses, I am told is now in use among the 
Dutch people ; and that in this method, their horses 
will trample out sixty bushels in a day. At present 
we are more concerned how to raise wheat and rye, 
than to learn any expeditious way to thresh it out : 
if ever we should be blessed with large crops, such 
an invention might be of use. 

There are various ways of cleansing red and white 
clover seed, which is a difficult seed to be parted or 
separated from its chaff or containing coat: The 
ways of doing it has been held as a secret and a mys- 
terious business ; and indeed most of the ways in use, 
or are commonly known, are slow and not so effectual 
to get out all the seeds as would be desired. 

Being now upon the article of threshing with the 
wheel, I shall set before the reader the way of cleans- 
ing or getting out clover seed with a wheel, which I 
look upon by far the most effectual and expeditious 
method. 

Take your clover hav to a tanner's bark-milk 
where they use a stone wheel, grind it, and clear it 
from the chaff with a corn-fan, what heads or chaff is 
not fully cleared and all the seed got out, put upon 
the floor and grind it again, and fan it as before : in 
this manner, I am told, a man will grind, fan and 
make quite clean a bushel in one day : nor w T ill the 
stone-wheel crush and spoil any of the seed ; a mis- 
chief which at first one would think unavoidable. — 
Where a stone wheel cannot be had, it may be worth 
the while to try a cider- mill ; but I fear there will 
want the rouehness of the stone to tare off the chaff. 
This I esteem as an article of some importance, and I 
hope will be more so ; for I believe it will not be well 
with New- England, till every farmer shall have a 
bushel or two of clover seed to sow every year upon 
his own land. 

5 



34 

I informed a gentleman who raiseth a great deal of 
'clover, of this method of cleansing the seed by the 
stone-wheel and fan ; he said he was obliged to me, 
for he did believe that it would save him twenty-five 
pounds money in one year in cleansing his seed. 

4. We read, I. Kings, 19. 19, of Elisha, who was 
ploughing with tzvclve yoke of oxen before him. This 
was a mighty team : It must be a plough of a very 
different structure from what is now in use ; but 
some imagine the text is to be understood of twelve 
different teams and ploughs, from what follows, And 
he 7vas with the twelfth. His twelve yoke of oxen 
brings to my mind what Mr. Ellis relates of a minis- 
ter in England, who had been over sea, and brought 
home with him a plough with which one yoke of 
small oxen ploughed twelve acres of land in one day : 
But we know not what sort of a plough it was, that 
either the prophet or the minister made use of: If 
ever there was such a plough as that twelve acre 
plough, it is pity Mr. Ellis did not enable himself to 
give a description of it. 

5. I shall name but one rule of husbandry more 
from the Scripture, and that is from 2 Cor. 9. 6. 

The Apostle exhorting to liberality, refers them 
to a known rule among husbandmen : but this I say, 
He that soweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly : 
and he which soweth bountifully, shall reap also boun- 
tifully. In the application of this rule we are to be 
under the conduct of reason, use, prudence and dis- 
cretion : we are not to cover the ground with seed ; 
for instead of having more increase, we shall have 
less : but that we do not spare, but use such propor- 
tion of seed as is found by experience to be best. 
In England they sow two bushels and an half of 
wheat to one acre, and as much flax seed upon an 
acre ; but these proportions are too much, and with 
us will tet a waste of seed, if wt prejudicial to the 



crop : But in strong land more seed than we ordina- 
rily use would be best. Last summer I saw flax on 
strong d**eined land, which was choaked with weeds, 
and much hurt for want of more seed : Thick seed- 
ing in such land would have kept down the weeds, 
and would have rendered the harle finer, and would 
likely have much increased the crop. 

In dreined land, of which I gave a large account 
last year, I sowed a little hemp seed. I sowed my 
little piece very thick ; it was a well proportioned 
harle, and run up six feet and an half high. The 
improvement of such drained land for hemp was what 
I had in view, so I have the satisfaction to find by 
that small trial, that it is a sort of land that is likely 
to answer my expectation when it comes to have suf- 
ficient age, for such land must have time. 

Now I am upon this article, I would inform the 
reader, that old hemp seed* will not grow, not so 
much as one seed of it : The knowledge of this may 
be an advantage to such as have drained land and 
would sow hemp. Drained land, some of it this last 
summer hath yielded great crops of grass and Indian 
corn, eighty bushels to the acre. I have also the 
pleasure to observe, that lately here and in the neigh- 
bouring towns, the farmers are ditching, draining 
and entering apace into that useful branch of good 
husbandry. 

These rules of husbandry taken from the Scripture, 
being so remarkable and useful, I wonder no writer 
on this subject hath taken notice of them. The text 
saith, sow bountifully : Let, it be remembered, that 
whatsoever helps we have from the Holy Scripture, 
relating to the life that now is, the primary and ori- 
ginal design of it is to promote the divine life, should 
therefore be valued and improved accordingly. 

Now since there are very few fragments left us of 
the old rules and art, by which great multitudes of 



36 

people had their sole maintenance from a verry Kittle 
land, so little that if they were as plain and frugal as 
the old Romans, yet people cannot live upon the air : 
In our way of husbandry we should think it impossible 
for a family to live upon two acres and a quarter of 
land. These rules being lost, we have this comfort, 
that what hath been done may be done again. Old 
arts when they have been long lost, are sometimes 
recovered again and pass for new inventions, or at 
least some other good rules may be substituted in 
the place of such as are lost. 

1. Useful arts are sometimes lost for want of being 
put into writing. Tradition is a very slippery tenure, 
and a slender pin to bear any great weight for a long 
time. 

2. When they are committed to writing, the devas- 
tations of war, fires and other disasters may destroy all 
those valuable monuments of antiquity and treasures 
of useful knowledge. As it was in Italy when the 
Goths, Vandals, and other rude people brake in upon 
them and laid all waste ; like what was said of the 
locusts, before a fire, and behind a wilderness. 

3. Sometimes indolence and carelessness may be 
the occasion of this loss. For instance, our first 
planters were wont to roll their barley, as they do at 
present in England, with a large wooden roller drawn 
by an horse, which is of service to break all the clods 
and fasten the loose earth about the roots, and prevent 
the progress of worms. I remember I heard an old 
man say, his father left him to roll a piece of barley, 
he was idle and left a part of the land not rolled, 
thinking it would not be known ; his father found 
by the difference of the crop at harvest, and said upon 
it, you was an idle jack, and did not roll this part of 
the field. We raise now but little barley ; it may 
be (at least in part) owing from a neglect of this 
part of husbandry ; the knowledge of which is lost. 



This brings to my mind what a man once told me, 
That having suffered much in his young apple trees, 
by the mice eating off the bark under the snow, both 
in his nursery, and orchard planted out : to prevent 
the like evil for the future, he used to tread down the 
snow hard about his trees and it was effectual. 

I have seen the like mischief done to button-wood 
trees, planted for fence and fire- wood. A young tree 
which we have planted, it is worth while to take some 
pains to preserve it. I mention this nowjest I should 
forget it. 

Another piece of skill which we have carelessly 
lost, is the knowledge of the proper times to cut 
timber. 

Our forefathers had this knowledge, so that the 
timber they cut would last a great deal longer than 
the timber that is cut in these days. 

If it be said that they had great choice of timber ; 
why so have we had in those towns which were new 
settled within these fifty years. So that it r is not 
strange that old arts are lost in a long tract of time, 
when we have in less than an hundred years lost a 
skill so useful and needful. 

The way to get out of this difficulty, arising from 
the scarcity of hay, which is the present subject of 
complaint, seems to be easy and natural ; which is 
by clearing and draining swamps, cranberry and bog 
meadows. The last summer has shewed us what 
may be done. Some of the most forward of those 
lands have yielded four loads of English hay to the 
acre. But as this clearing, ditching and draining, 
will, when it is in the hands of the most able and 
wealthy, require time : it will be still more difficult 
to the poor and less able, who cannot well expend 
labour when they receive no present pay ; but even 
in this pitiable case, I have seen how much a careful 
redeeming of time and a good resolution will do : A 



38 

great deal of clearing and ditching may be done in 
the winter, when little else can be done : But, while 
the grass grows, the steed starves. What can be done 
for a present supply ? 

Red clover is of a quick growth, and will supply 
our wants for the present ; a few months brings it 
forward to an high head. There are few people yet 
know the value of this beneficial grass. 

I had often met with it, that our nation being much 
exhausted and ruined by the civil war, retrieved their 
great losses by some new husbandry, and in a little 
time recovered themselves $nd got to a better state 
than ever ; but never could learn what was this ad- 
vantageous improvement, till I found by reading Mr. 
Hurtlib's Book of Husbandry, that it was principally 
by introducing this clover grass, called Flanders 
grass ; because the seed was brought from Brabant 
and other parts of Flanders. 

The propagating this grass in a plentiful manner, 
will answer two useful purposes at once ; it will sup- 
ply us with hay, and if sowed thick and there be a 
good sward to turn over, will be likely to supply us 
with wheat : for in England, the farmers say, A 
clover lay is a good foundation for a plentiful crop of 
wheat. And with us (as some tell me who tried it 
find) it ploughs harder than white clover sward, and 
looks redder and not so promising as the other, being 
both in the same field ; yet at harvest the red clovei 
land yielded as good a crop as the white clover land, 
But our old worn-out land is poor and will not pro- 
duce clover. If you sow clover seed in poor land, 
it will not come up but little better than if it ^ad been 
baked, and that which comes up will not grow thick 
enough, or sufficiently tall to mow ; there must 
therefore be provision in this case, otherwise i\v 
direction will be useless 



S9 

To provide a remedy for this evil, is the next 
thing to be considered. 

Ashes is allowed on all hands to be some of the 
best dressing or manure for land ; it enricheth much 
and lasts long ; but the misery is, we can get but 
little. It is a frequent saying, if we could get a suf- 
ficiency of ashes, we could do well enough. It takes 
a great deal of wood to make a little ashes : but 
peat will yield abundance of ashes, some sort of it. 
This is a fossil, of which many in this country have 
not so much as heard the name. They have known 
it in England and Ireland a long time ; and thousands 
of families have no other fewtl for firing but peat : 
but the use of it for land is a new thing. Theirs is 
so good, that fifteen bushels of the ashes is full 
enough for an acre of land : they reckon fifteen 
bushels of these ashes as good as forty of that made 
of wood. That about Longley and Newberry, where 
they find peat, the ashes have been so useful, that land 
that before would rent but for five shillings a year, 
by the help of ashes was raised to twenty shillings 
sterling the acre. 

As to the formation, original or matter of which 
peat is produced^ it is reasonably supposed to be 
made of the wood which grew before the flood : when 
the trees and shrubs were torn down by the mighty 
commotion of wind and water, these were hurried 
to and fro, at length lodged by their own weight and 
intanglement into low grounds, and in time was con- 
verted to what is now called peat. It is of an uncti- 
ous, bituminous nature ; some of it when dry, resem* 
bles the thickened juice of plants. That this is the 
original of it, I think I can produce satisfactory and 
undeniable proofs. A person digging peat at my 
desire, told me that he found the perfect shape of a 
log, but converted to peat, and as soft as butter. I 
have found m the peat where it was deep, the fibrous 



- 



40 

parts of bark ; (Hair we know resists corruption a 
long time) I have also found coals and burnt sticks 
and other bits of wood not turned to peat. Sundry- 
persons coming to see some dried peat, and having 
heard what I thought of its original, one of the com- 
pany breaking a lump of it found in it the dung of 
some fowl, that retained its perfect figure, colour 
and consistenpe, as though it had not been voided a 
month pasto at this the man says, // it be so as rue 
have heard,./ do not know but I have found the dung 
of that very dove xvhich came out of the ark. 

What induced me to search after peat, was the 
great desire I had to find some inexhaustible store of 
manure for our land, but finding by books, that the 
peat they used in England, they found in intervale 
lands, and that they dug through several beds or layers 
of earth, six or seven feet deep to come at it, I thought 
if I should search for it and find it in such land, the 
charge of turning that top-earth would be too charge- 
able for us to bear ; but after some reasoning upon 
it, I thought it probable it might be found in swamps, 
searched and found it in some places within six 
inches of the surface ; in a few weeks I found it in 
three several towns, and in seven distinct places, and 
do believe it to be verv plentv in the countrv. 

It may be known from mud by its cutting sleek 
and smooth, and is much like as when you cut butter 
or hog's fat in very cold weather ; some is softer, but 
that which is most compact and hardest is the best. 
If you are still at a loss, dry a piece upon thev 
slice, then put it into the fire, its manner of burning 
will shew whether it be peat : When you once know 
it, you may always know it, let it be of what colour 
it will. 

I have found three sorts, white, brown and black ; 
I call it white, as being a lighter colour than the other 
sorts : It is before it is burnt, of the colour of wet 



41 

ashes made of wood, but after it is burnt, is as white 
as chalk : the ashes are very light, therefore con- 
cjude that they are not very strong ; but it yields 
plentifully, being as to appearance as much after 
burning as it was before it was burnt. Seven bush- 
els of this was scattered upon green wheat this fall, 
and I hear makes the corn look greener and more 
fresh and lively. 

I gave a former some bushels of brown peat ashes, 
which he sowed upon his winter corn in the poorest 
part of his lot, the corn he tells me looks well, and 
equal in goodness to land which was moderately 
folded with the sheep. This way of sowing ashes 
upon corn is what in England is called top dressing. 

Another farmer having prepared a piece of ground 
for turnips, one part he dunged with yard dung, an- 
other with wood ashes, another with peat ashes, in 
proportion to fifteen bushels to the acre, the remaining 
part he put nothing upon it ; that part dressed with 
peat ashes produced the best turnips. 

This white sort of peat is so destitute of oily, sul- 
phurous bituminous parts, that it will not burn alone 
without the assistance of wood ; but by some that I 
tried, I believe a little wood will burn a great deal 
of it. It is easy to get thousands of bushels of these 
ashes. 

Brown peat after it hath been spread and dry, let 
it be shoveled up in a long heap ; when it is once set 
on fire with a little brush, or small wood laid on the 
windward side, it will burn of itself, nor will the rain 
put it out : if it be wet when it is burnt, it yields 
fewer ashes. You must take care it do not burn 
too fast ; restrain the fire by putting on more peat, 
but if you stifle it too much in the middle, instead of 
ashes you will have charcoal. This sort of peat 
shrinks much in drying and in the burning, not yield- 
ing much ashes ; but the ashes of a reddish color 
6 



42 

and heavy, and consequently better than the white 
sort. This sort makes excellent charcoal, better 
than than that made of wood. The peat looked so 
well, I procured a trial of it raw in the blacksmith's 
forge, found that a good white welding heat might 
be raised by that alone. I had a coulter laid with it 
very well ; but then it is too slow in raising such 
a heat ; but mixed with charcoal, it seems to do well. 
After the coal is put on lay the peat so as to surround 
the coal, it being a little of the nature of sea coal, it 
renders the fire more compact, the heat more intense, 
and the coal much more durable ; besides this being 
two thirds cheaper than common charcoal, it would 
probably be a good saving to the smith and bloomer. 
What it will do in a furnace for iron, I cannot say. 

The third sort of peat that I have found, is black 
peat ; this I suppose to be the best, as affording a 
plenty of ashes, and better than either of the other 
sorts : this is that which they use in England to 
burn, in order with its a^hes to manure their land; 
nor do I know whether they have any other sort, ex- 
cept turf-peat, of which sort I have a specimen by 
me, which came from Ireland ; which I do not think 
to be properly peat, but a fibrous complication of 
moss roots. 

I suppose peat may be found in all parts of the 
country, yea all over the world; which is an evi- 
dence of the care, wisdom and goodness of Provi- 
dence, in preserving as it were in pickle, the wood 
which grew before the flood for our use, and that the 
ruins of the old world should supply the wants and 
wastes of the present. This affair of peat also affords 
us an evidence, from the nature of the thing, that the 
Mosaic or Scripture account of Noah's flood is true. 

As to the advantage of peat, it is so little time since 
the discovery of it, that we have not had time to 
make trials and experiments of it or its ashes, as can 



43 

be very certain or instructive : but hope another year 
a satisfactory account may be given of this new" im- 
provement. 

Another sort of manure for the enriching land, is 
what I just mentioned the last year, and that is shell 
sand : it is called sand, but improperly : as it lies on 
the beach, to an observing eye, it would be thought 
sand, whereas it is not gritt, but small broken shells. 
It is remarkable that such large beaches in which ' 
there are many thousand cart loads, yet composed 
chiefly of shells not bigger than a man's little finger 
nail : as also, that if you take away twenty or thirty 
tons, the cavity will be filled in a few days with the 
same sort of small shells. This I suppose to be the 
same sort of shell sand which in England and Ireland 
they carry in bags on horses twenty or thirty miles 
into the country to sow on their land to enrich it, and 
save the wheat from blasting and mildew. 

We design here this winter to build a small float 
or vessel of twenty tons, to bring that sand from 
Guilford to this town. 

The next sort of manure which I shall mention, is 
clay ashes. We have very little clay here ; if it had 
been plenty, I should have tried the most likely ways 
to burn it that I could think of: I cannot think but 
that it might be burnt with as much ease as white 
peat : the clay that is of a reddish colour is esteemed 
the best, and that three cart loads of the ashes is 
accounted sufficient to dress an acre well. 

The last sort of dressing I shall take notice of, is 
lime stone, which abounds in the back parts of the 
country. 1 have not heard of any on the sea coast, 
or on the land adjoining to navigable rivers for twenty 
miles back ; for thus far the inhabitants may be sup- 
plied with shells from the sea : at about twenty 
miles end, more or less, the lime stone begins and 
extends far and wide ; which is an evidence that th( 



44 

world is made and governed by a kind, wise and 
intelligent Being. 

This is a manure when burnt, which is much used 
and esteemed by farmers in England, although it be 
to us difficult and chargeable to burn it, yet there they 
have the skill to burn it cheap, with peat, turf or 
wood in a well regulated lire. A little fire or water 
will do great things, if duly ordered so as to have the 
advantaee of its full force. 

It hath been for a time, my desire and endeavor to 
find manure for our land, such as will be cheap, 
within every man's reach and enough of it ; and I 
cannot but flatter myself with an hope that these four 
sorts of materials will afford the sufficiency so much 
wanted, and will prove an inexhaustible fund for that 
purpose : but time and experience must determine 
this important affair. 

I should have observed before, that in England, 
peat ashes brings forward clover grass in an extra- 
ordinary manner, and so sweetens the ground that 
let the grass be ever so rank, yet the cattle eat it with 
eagerness before other grass. 

I have heard of swamps in the country that after 
all proper expense upon them, are barren and un- 
fruitful, either at first or afterwards. I went to see 
such an one last summer, and found the cause of its 
unprofitableness was brown peat's lying too near the 
top. Brown peat, when it is stirred and exposed to 
the air and sun, becomes hard like, cinders : if this 
be the case in one place, it may be so in another. 
Peat that comes nearest to the top of the ground, that 
I have seen, is five or six inches, the top- earth is 
of a reddish colour. 

A certain farmer of good credit, willing to promote 
the public good, told me, that when he had washed 
his sheep, he did not shear them as soon as they were 
r , as is the common custom, but laid them in a 



45 

clean pasture five or six days, that so the wool might 
have time to acquire its primitive oilness drawn 
from the sheep's body, which made it stronger and 
better to card, spin, weave, dress and wear ; which 
put me in mind of what I had read, that in England 
they shear some of their sheep unwashed, to mix it 
with the Irish wool, which is too dry and stiff for 
good working. 

Since I am upon the article of wool, I will mention 
one thing relating to dying blue ; I supposed that 
the urine in which the indigo is dissolved, was not 
impregnated with salt sufficient to open the parts of 
the indigo and set the colour ; I told a woman I 
would advise her to make a strong lye or lee of com- 
mon wood ashes, then boil that away to a dryness, 
take an ounce of this salt with an ounce of indigo, 
put it into the usual quantity of urine, which she and 
others tried and found it did great service, by setting 
the colour deeper and lengthening out the indigo : 
she further told me, that she put some of the salt 
into old dry stuff almost spent, .it so renewed it that 
it did good service. I suppose that crude sal-armo- 
niac would do better still, being nearer a kin to uri- 
nous salt. 

If I have forfeited my readers favour, or it should 
be so ordered bv Providence, that I should discon- 
tinue the essay, I hope the hints that have been offer- 
ed may be pursued by my countrymen, who are 
enterprizing and ingenious. I shall add no more but 
only a few receipts. 

If a farmer in England should sow his wheat dry, 
without steeping in some proper liquor, he would be 
accounted a bad husbandman. Mr. Ellis directs to 
put in a quart of salt into as much water as is suffi- 
cient to cover two bushels and an half of wheat, to 
which add two quarts of slacked lime, put in the 
wheat after vou have well stirred the brine, let the 



46 

* 

wheat steep twelve hours, then draw off the water, 
spread the seed after it hath drained half an hour, sift 
upon it dry lime, stirring it about, which will make it 
dry enough for immediate sowing. 

I have not room to name the advantages they say 
they have from this practice. When I did it this 
year, I used tide water ; this saves salt : some direct 
to make the brine very strong, so as to bear an egg. 

A Receipt for increasing a Barley Crop* 

Dissolve three pounds of copperas in a pail full of 
boiling water, add to this as much dung- puddle water 
as will well cover three bushels and an half of barley, 
stir it*and let it steep twenty four hours ; save the 
liquor for after steeping, with a little addition it will 
do again and again; when the seed is spread and 
dreined, sift on fine lime, which dries it fit for sowing. 

I dreined my wheat after steeping in a corn basket. 

A Receipt for burning Clay. 

Any sort of clay will do for ashes, but that of a 
reddish colour is accounted the best for that purpose. 

Dig your clay with a spade in spits, of the bigness 
of ordinary bricks; dig two, three, - eight, ten or 
twenty loads of clay, more or less, as you please ; 
take small billets of wood, or faggots of brush, piie 
it up in the form of a pyramid or sugar loaf, three or 
four feet high, then take these spits of clay, after they 
are dried in the sun, surround your pile of wood with 
them, laying them close to the wood, laying them 
one upon another till you have enclosed the pile of 
wood, only leaving an hole on the sicte to put in the 
fire, and an hole on the top to make a draught ; then 
surround again with spits of clay from top to bottom, 
as before, and then again a third laying in the same 
order, then kindle your fire ; when it is well got on 



47 

lire, stop up the holes with clay, the innate heat will 
fire the clay till it grow so hot that you may put on 
wet clay in great quantities ; but you must mind not 
to put on clay so fast, or Jay it so close as to put out 
your fire, for if you do so, you must begin all anew. 
If you desire to burn so much clay as that the heap 
grows so high that you cannot reach to lay it up, you 
may build a stage with boards, by which you may 
advance to as great a height as you please. The pile 
must be watched and tended night and day, till it is 
fully burnt. 

The author of the book out of which this receipt is 
taken, very much commends clay ashes, and tells 
what is a comfortable hearing, which is, that forty 
bushels of these ashes is a full dressing for an acre 
of land. 

The reader must take this upon trust ; if true, it 
will make well for Hartford, Wethersfield, and those 
towns which abound in clay. 

It may be tried with a very little cost ; if any should 
try, I should be glad to know the success. By wet 
clay above named, we are to understand clay in its 
natural moist state, as it is taken from the pit. I 
suppose that to burn large quantities of clay at once 
in one pile, will be both cheaper and better perform- 
ed, than when burnt in small heaus. 

I shall conclude with one receipt more, which is 
infallible and invaluable, and derived from the highest 
and best authority : Seek ye first the kingdom of God 
and his righteousness* and ail these things shall be 
added unto you. Godliness is profitable unto all things, 
having the promise of the life which now is, and of 
that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, fnd 
worthy of all acceptation. 



48 

PART III. 

Sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield 

fruits of increase, Psal. cvii. 37. 
For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands : happy 

shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee, Psal. 

cxxviii. 2. 

THE foundation of a settlement in New-England, 
was not laid otherwise than at a great ex pence of 
lives and estate. Almost half the planters died soon 
after their arrival, of such distempers, which had 
probably been contracted by hunger, cold and other 
hardships to which they had been exposed. 

This, and the following transmigrations, the his- 
torians of those times inform us, cost for the trans- 
porting inhabitants, ninety five thousand pounds 
sterling ; for bringing over live stock, horses, neat 
cattle, sheep and goats, twenty thousand pounds : for 
provisions, until it could be raised in the country for 
their subsistence, forty five thousand pounds more ; 
which reduced to our currency makes a prodigious 
sum. 

They having laid for us a good foundation, and 
left us, their posterity, possessed of the fruits of their 
expense and labour ; we shall be wanting to ourselves 
if we fail to improve and manure this great and good 
land ; or neglect to follow the example of virtue and 
industry which is set before us. 

The continuation of this essay is designed to for- 
ward and promote such improvement. 

If the aboriginal natives, the Indian inhabitants of 
this country, did subsist here in great numbers when 
destitute of ploughs, the labour of the ox, or any 
instrument made of iron, or any other metal : it 
would be to our dishonour, if from indolence or want 
of application, we do not comfortably subsist, and 
advance in our improvement. 



49 

It hath been observed by our writers, that Old 
England, in former times, suffered more frequently 
and more severely by famine, than in later times. 
This was not owing to the inclemency of the seasons 
in those distant times, or to better seasons in these 
days, that there is a greater plenty. Our English 
historians inform us, that there was so great a famine 
in the reign of Edward the Third, that bread corn 
was sold at thirteen times more than the usual price. 
Any remarkable scarcity is now very rare. There 
may be two reasons assigned, under Providence, as 
the cause of this difference. 

1. In those ancient times, England had but little 
shipping or trade : there was then little sent away 
besides block- tin and wool : there being no market 
for corn, flesh, and other provisions but whac could 
be found at home ; there was no encouragement to 
raise it, more than to supply their own wants : if they 
did raise more, it must he upon their hands, there 
being yearly but little corn sowed, if the seasons 
were a little unfavorable, it was immediately felt; 
whereas when a great deal is planted and sowed, if 
there happens hail, frost, blast and mildew, so as to 
cut short the crop, yet there will be sufficient for the 
inhabitants. 

2. Another reason of the difference between the 
former and latter times, is this : in these times there 

7 4 

is a greater variety of lands under improvement than 
formerly ; some dry land, some moist, some clayey, 
and some sandy ground ; some high, and some low 
dre'med land. 

The farmers of the present age make use of a 
greater variety -of grain than formerly. Thty sow 
live and twenty sorts of wheat ; many sorts of grass, 
many sorts of roots and fruits ; the advantage obtain- 
ed thereby is very great ; the season that ill suits with 
one sort of land, or grain, rnav agree well with ano- 

7 



50 

ther : A wet summer will suit the dry land, and dry 
seasons agree with the low moist land ; when one 
fails, another hits. A variety of grain and grass may 
be fitted to that sort of land to which in its nature it 
is most agreeable. 

It is allowed by all, that to obtain great crops of 
barley, the land should be very strong; be made 
mellow, that is reduced to a great degree of fineness ; 
these being the two necessary properties for barley 
ground, I thought that certainly the dreined land, 
which would produce eighty bushels of Indian corn 
to the acre, and the ground very fine and mellow, 
would not fail to produce great crops of barley. I 
made a trial ; but it proved otherwise than was ex- 
pected ; the produce was small and poor : whereas 
the same land afforded very large flax, at which I 
much wondered, till I met with an old English 
rhyming proverb, viz. to have great crops of flax and 
barley — 

Soxv flax in the mire, 
Soiv barley in the fire. 

By sowing in the fire, we are to understand that 
barley must be sowed in land well heated with dung, 
lime, or ashes, or other hot manure. 

I suppose that if the aforementioned land had been 
dunged, and thereby warmed, it might have yielded 
much barley. 

It would be of advantage to introduce a great va- 
riety of sorts of grain, not as yet commonly in use 
among us. 

From what experience I have had of it, I w T ould 
recommend Millet ; some of this seed was sent to mc 
under the name of East India Wheat ; I soon discov- 
ered that it was no species of Wheat, but that it was 
Millet. It is a small grain of a yellowish color, and 
of the bigness of turnip or cabbage seed ; it was an- 
tiently used as bread- corn ? as we may see in Ezek. 4. 9« 



51 

I tried a little of it, exactly measuring the ground 
and product ; made a computation, and found 
that although the land was poor, yet it yielded at the 
rate of thirty two bushels to the acre. I have been 
told that strong land will produce fifty or sixty bush- 
els to the acre ; it may be sowed in the Spring, or 
in June ; it is but a mean sort of grain, yet it will 
save better. 

The sore drought in the Summer past, which al- 
most destroyed the clover grass, put me upon thoughts 
of a supply of fodder when clover fails ; pursuant 
hereunto, I ploughed up some flax ground, in July, 
sowed Millet seed the twenty sixth day, it came up, 
but much flax came up with it, rendered it unfit for 
mowing, as I designed ; I should have ploughed up 
oat stubble instead of flax ground. 

If the scattered oats had grown up, it would have 
helped the crop when it came to be mowed, rather 
than obstructed it. 

The Millet being thus incumbered and choaked 
with the flax, I let it stand for feeding ; I put a cow 
into the same field to fat, and observed that although 
there was good rowen of spire grass, and white clover, 
the cow neglected that, and would feed constantly 
upon the Millet, till that was all spent before she 
would eat the grass, by which I was assured that it 
was good feed. 

Although the seed be small, yet it puts up a large 
strong stalk, bigger than that of wheat. It hath on the 
sides many large leaves like Indian corn at moulding, 
or hilling time, so that it looks likely that if mowed 
green, it will make good fodder, which may be an 
help to those who foresee they are likely to want hay. 

If you sow it so early as to have a crop of grain, 
and it stands till the seed be ripe, yet the straw will 
be good. 



52 

There is one advantage attending this grain, that a 
little seed is sufficient ; two or three quarts will seed 
an acre. It is probable that when it is sowed only 
for pasture or mowing, it will be best to sow it thick- 
er than when it is sowed for a crop of grain. 

I gave a little of the seed to a man that hath but 
little meadow ; he sowed it last Spring, yet notwith- 
standing the drought, he had a good yield ; it bears 
the drought as well as wheat. The man is so well 
pleased with it, and thinks it will be such an help to 
him, that he designs to sow the next Spring all that he 
raised. 

I scattered a few seeds in the dreined land, have 
reason to think it will prosper well in such land. 

Although it may do iO sow it late, yet the last 
years experience makes it evident, that sowing in the 
Spring is best if you design a crop of grain. 

It is a grain that will serve to feed the poultry, and 
when ground to meal serve for the swine ; nay, I have 
known the time when we should have applied it for 
human sustenance. 

It is a Summer grain, and therefore not exposed to 
be killed with the winter, as it frequently happens 
to wheat and rye ; nor have I yet observed it subject 
to blast or milldew ; for these reasons it may be of 
advantage to encourage its propagation. 

As wheat is justly termed the golden grain, and as 
we have but few sorts of it among us, it may be of 
advantage to encourage a greater variety, and espe- 
cially of Summer wheat, since we find the other 
wheat is subject to be destroyed in the Fall by wheat- 
lice, and in the Winter by frost. 

There is a sort of Summer wheat brought into 
use, not subject to blast as the sort we had formerly 
among us. 

We should sow both Winter and Summer wheat, 
if one fails, the other may prosper. 



53 

Some Maslin that I sowed in peat land never came 
up at ail, no more than if it had been sowed on the 
sea-beach ; this land had been dreined longer than 
that where the corn grows, which is an evidence that 
peat land requires more time, and will be longer be- 
fore it will be fertile and bring forth corn, and grass, 
than that land which is proper earth. At first I was 
of the opinion that peat land would never be fruitful, 
but time and experience hath taught me that I was 
mistaken ; it is slower in coming too than other land, 
but afterwards produceth both corn and grass as well 
as any of the dreined land. 

This is what I think I ought in justice to insert, 
considering what I have said in a former essay. 

What induced me to think that peat land would 
prove totally barren was this, I observed the land that 
had been dreined some years, yet would bear nothing. 
I also took notice that when it was made small, yet 
every particle was hard like rosin ; but I find that 
the rain and frost in time will reduce it to mould, and 
then be very good land. 

As it may be to our advantage to sow a great va- 
riety of grain, so various sorts of grass that are good 
should be propagated among us, and may be equally 
advantageous. We should have grain and grass to 
suit various sorts of land. We many times, as it were, 
commit a rape upon our land, by forcing it to that 
improvement for which it is not fitted by nature ; we 
have the clearest discovery of this in flax ; we shall 
see it flourish well on some land, and again in other 
land full as strong, and good for grain, yet there flax 
will do nothing. It may be so in all other sorts of 
grain and grass which we sow, although as yet we 
have not the skill to find it out. 

This is a piece of knowledge in husbandry in 
which we are still very deficient, and must be obtain- 
ed by strict observation and experience, 



54 

Indian corn, as it is a native of the country, seems 
to do well in any sort of land, either sandy or clay, 
high or low land, provided it be but strong, whether 
it be made so by art or nature. 

There are two sorts of grass which are natives of 
the country, which I would recommend ; these are 
Herd Grass, (known in Pensylvania by the name of 
Timothy-Grass) the other is Fowl Meadowy some- 
times called Duck grass, and somtimes Swamp-wire 
grass. It is said that herd grass was first found in a 
swamp in Piscataqua by one Herd, who propagated 
the same ; that fowl meadow grass was brought into 
a poor giece of meadow in Dedham, by ducks and 
other water fowl, and therefore called by such an odd 
name. It is supposed to be brought into the mead- 
ows at Hartford by the annual floods, and called there 
Swamp Wire grass. Of these two sorts of natu- 
ral grass, the fowl grass is much the best ; it grows 
tall and thick, makes a more soft and pliable hay than 
herd grass, and consequently will be more fit for 
pressing, in order to ship off with our horses ; besides 
it is a good grass, not abundantly inferior to English 
grass ; it yields a good burthen, three loads to the 
acre. It must be sowed in low moist land ; our 
dreined land when it is of sufficient age, is land very 
agreeable to this sort of grass. As the seed is very 
fine, there is danger of sowing it too thick, as some 
have done so as to come up thick like hair ; this is a 
loss of seed, and prejudicial to the grass. When you 
bring too a swamp by flowing, have killed your brush 
and ditched your land, and got it a little dry, you may 
sow your seed among the trees and brush ; it will 
come up, establish itself, and prevent other bad grass 
from taking possession ; then you may clear oft* the 
wood and brush at your leisure ; and then you will 
have good grass to mow as fast as you can clear the 



55 ' 

land. I have seen it grow knee high where the dead 
brush wivS very thick. 

This grass has another good quality, which renders 
it very valuable in a country where help is so much 
wanting ; it will not spoil or suffer, although it stand 
beyond the common times for mowing. Clover will 
be lost in a great measure if it be not cut in the prop- 
er season. Spire grass, commonly called English 
grass, if it stands too long will be little better than rye 
-straw : if this outstand the time, it is best to let it stand 
till there comes up a second growth, and then it will 
do tolerably well ; but this fowl grass may be mowed 
at any time, from July to October. 

One of my sons told me, that at New- Fairfield, he 
saw some stacks of it that the people told him was 
cut in October, he pulled out some of the hay, it look- 
ed green, and had a good smell. This is a great con- 
venience in time of sickness, or any other casualty 
whereby we may be hindered from mowing in season. 

This good property renders it a fit sort of grass for 
a new country, where we often have business crowd 
too hard upon us. 

In reading Mr. Ellis, I find by him that in England 
they have got herd grass seed from this country, and 
set a value upon it ; if they like that, they would like 
this much better. 

Our common spire grass beareth the inequality of 
our climate better than any other foreign artificial 
grass ; it is a hardy grass, and it is the best we 
have for winter feeding. 

I have tried two sort of grass, which they value very 
much in England, viz. La Lucern and St. Foin ; they 
will flourish a while, but others have found, as well as 
I, that it will not bear the rigour of our climate : -a 
hot dry summer, or a hard winter, will destroy it. 

I have some of the seed sent to me from Philadel- 
phia, by a good friend there, which I design to try 



56 

upon my dreined land, and see if I can succed any 
better than I have done heretofore. 

As we ought to propagate various sorts of grain 
and grass, that so we may have the advantage of all 
sorts of land, and seasons, so we should adapt our 
tillage to the various sorts of land which we improve* 
We find land will yield wheat best when it is plough- 
ed three times ; and some will be hurt by it. 

At Long- Island they turn up their old land for 
wheat, and begin to plough as soon after wheat har- 
vest as they can : at sowing time harrow their land 
the same way that it was ploughed ; in this way they 
have although not great corn, yet there being but 
little labour or expense, they have saving profitable 
crops. 

The experienced farmers say, that their grass 
ground thus ploughed once in five years mends the 
land in this way of tillage ; the land must be smooth 
and free from stones. 

Eight or ten years past, an old experienced farmer 
told me, that he had observed much land worn out 
and spoiled by shallow ploughing ; he earnestly re- 
commended deep ploughing, even thin shallow land ; 
said that he had tried it long, and often : thereupon I 
ordered a piece of land to be ploughed so deep, that 
our farmers thought that I had spoiled the land. We 
have had wheat twice since that time upon the same 
land, think that deep ploughing did the land no hurt, 
but good. 

I have been told, and know it by my own observa- 
tion, that if you sow rye successively every year on 
the same land, the crops and land will grow better. 

Some land that at first would yield but five bushels 
to the acre, without the least charge of dung, or any 
manure, in time would afford a crop of fifteen bushels 
to the acre. 



\ 



57 

It should be ploughed, and the seed harrowed in 
soon after the crop is taken off, the sooner the better : 
it will take less seed, because what sheds out in har- 
vesting the antecedent crop, will serve in part to seed 
the land ; and the stubble being turned in when it is 
new avid fresh, is much better than when it hath stood 
long drying in the sun and wind. 

But; I believe the principal thing is the sowing 
early; for although rye will do when sowed late, 
better than wheat, yet early sowing agrees with it 
better than with wheat. 

I remember Hartlib tells us that Sir John Culpep- 
per sowed winter rye in the spring, fed it close till 
common sowing time, and had the biggest crop that 
ever had been known in that part of the country. 

This way of sowing rye yearly, must be profitable ; 
as it mends the land, and the crop is obtained with 
little charge ; the land may be ploughed with a small 
team, and there is but little expense of seed. 

A small crop obtained with little charge, may af- 
ford more real gain, than when you have a great crop 
where much labour and cost is bestowed : by the 
great crop you may get fame, but by the small harvest 
you may get the most money. 

But to the successful ordering this piece of husban- 
dry, some few rules should be observed. 

1. Land that you would devote to this sort of im- 
provement, should be free of stones, stubbs, and such 
like impediments', which might hinder your well 
ploughing and harrowing. 

2. The land should be very free from chadlock, 
tares, chess ; which if in the ground will increase 
Very much in this course of tillage. 

3. Also your seed should be perfectly clean, and 
free from ail kinds of trash ; otherwise tares, cockle, 
chess, and the like, although there be but little, yet it 
will increase from year to year, till you are run out 

bre you have made a full experiment.- 
8 



58 

4. The land that you would improve this way; 
must be entirely free from blue grass, called by some 
Dutch grass, or wire grass. 

If the land be inclined to this sort of grass, this sort 
of tillage will so much encourage this grass, that in a 
little time you will be forced to give over this kind of 
improvement ; as I know by experience : for having 
a piece of land, otherwise fit for this sort of husbandry, 
in two years I was quite beat out of the field, by the 
universal spreading of this grass, which took such full 
possession of the ground as to spoil the crop in a great 
measure. 

The dreined laud hath succeeded so well this two 
years past, that the same land which might be bought 
five or six years past for six pounds per acre, will 
now sell for an hundred pounds per acre ; nay, even 
although it be not cleared of the wood and brush, 
provided the growth be killed with previous flowing. 

By the way I would observe, that if a swamp be 
full of small brush, and but few great trees, the 
cheapest and best way is to flow it, and kill it with 
the water ; but if there be but little small brush, and 
the land be very thick with trees, it is best to clear it 
by hand ; for when it is killed with drowning the land, 
the trees are extremely hard to cut, so doth but delay 
the time, and increase the charge. 

I am told by a credible person that tried it, that the 
best way is to draw off the water at the beginning of 
the dog days ; the mud will be so heated with the sun, 
that in this method the swamp will be more killed in 
one year, than it will be in two years when the. water 
is kept up all the time : and it stands with reason it 
should do so ; for it is the heat and scalding of the 
water or mud which doth the business. 

I have observed, that where the water stands deep, 
and consequently keeps cool, the bushes and trees are 
the longer before they die. 



59 

But however as this is not backed with much ex- 
perience, every one must act his own judgment. 

Since the dreined lands are so valuable, we should 
extend that improvement as far as we can. 

I have observed in many fields there are small 
swamps or frog-ponds, which have a good deep soil, 
and are very rich ; and would be profitable, could 
they be dreined : but they lye low, and are incom- 
passed on all sides with high land, that it is impossible 
to drein them in the ordinary way. These swamps 
or frog-ponds, contain some a quarter of an acre, some 
half an acre, and some two or three acres. Let them 
be great or small, they are worth bringing to, if pos- 
sible, at a reasonable expense. 

If they can be dreined, and recovered at all, it may 
be done in a way that is easy and cheap. 

JL. In the first place, clear off all the bushes and let 
in the sun full upon it ; and this alone will do more 
than most men will believe, especially if it be not fed 
with springs » 

If the sun did not draw off abundance of water, 
why do not the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas 
drown all the country round, when there are so many 
great rivers continually discharging themselves into 
those Seas, where there is no out- Let? 

2. Look round on all sides, and see if on some side 
of the swamp there be not some river or low ground 
which is lower than the bottom of your frog-pond, 
which you desire to drein. On that side near the 
edge of the pond, dig an hole so deep till you come 
to a stratum or layer of grave], or coarse sand, then 
stop, and by a channel or little ditch let the water out 
of the pond or swamp into the hole ; and observe if 
in the space of three days the water begins to soak 
away, you may expect by this means to draw your 
land ; this subterraneous passage in time will draw 
iwav the water. 



60 

But in order to succeed, you will find in a few 
days there will be a fine sediment, thin like a cobweb 
in the bottom of the hole, which will entirely stop the 
passage of the water ; but this film is easily broken by 
stirring up the bottom with an hoe. 

This film will hold water like an iron pot, if it be 
not stirred and broken once in a few days. 

When you have drawn off the water, so that you 
can plough the ground, that will effectually break up 
the pan bottom, so that the water will soak away, and 
the land be useful and profitable for the time to come. 

As the bushes that grow in these frog-ponds are 
button-wood, for the most part, it is difficult to sub- 
due them any other way but by ploughing. 

This way of subterraneous dreining is more uncer- 
tain than when you have a visible out-let drein, yet 
the "trial may be made with a little charge. 

It is not only worth while to drein and subdue 
^uch places on the account of the profit that may be 
made hereby, but also for the sake of the deformity 
that is hereby removed : for these frog-ponds spoil 
the beauty of a field ; and are undesirable, like ulcers 
or sores in a man's face. 

When you are about to drein such land, or look- 
ing out for low land which is lower than the swamp 
you would drein, it is not much whether such river 
or low land be near, or at half a mile's distance. 

1 have known sundry such pieces of land dreined 
the common way, that have been so good, that in a 
short time they have paid all the charge expended 
upon them, and would look as though they never 
had been what they really once were. 

It is a common thing in swamps to find the moss 
two or three feet deep : at first I was a great deal 
concerned about it, how I should get rid of it ; as 
also whether the land would be of any worth if the 
moss was removed ; as is said, can the rush grow up 



61 

without mire ? can the flag grow without water ? So 
I found when the water was drawn off by ditches, 
the moss grew so dry, that in a hot dry season in the 
summer, it would burn quite down to the ground : 
bift to burn that, or any other trash that you would 
consume, set fire to it when the weather is clear, the 
sun hot, and a strong southerly wind, which makes 
fire rage more fiercely, and do much more execution 
than a northerly or westerly wind: in a northerly 
wind the air is thin and light, so that the fire is not 
strongly compressed ; the moist, heavy south wind 
prevents the dissipation of the fire and renders it 
more compact. 

We see a smith will swab and wet his coals, bv 

7 ml 

which means the heat is greatly increased. Now 
whether the reasoning be just or not, the fact is cer- 
tain, which is the chief concern of a farmer. 

In the first essay it is said, that the deep swamps 
are to be preferred to, and chosen before those that 
are shallow ; and I am now more confirmed in my 
choice: for experience shows that the deep soil 
beareth extreme drought better than any other land 
in the hot season. The cold drought in the spring 
will hurt such land, so that the first crop of grass will 
not be very great ; but the second crop will be extra- 
ordinary good. 

The Reverend Mr. Todd was offered thirty pounds 
for the second crop, or rowen of half an acre. 

The red clover in mv dreined land, which in the 
latter end of May last, in the cold drought looked 
then as though it would come to nothing ; when hot 
weather came on, although the drought continued, 
yet the grass recovered to a good colour, and grew 
up well. 

This is what may be considered as a very great 
advantage, and justifieth the choice of a deep soil, of 
eight or ten feet deep. 



62 

Our ditching and dreining drieth only the top of 
the ground, not more than three feet deep in the hot 
and dry season,. I suppose that the moisture from the 
mud and water underneath is drawn up by tne force 
of the sun, so the roots of the grass are furnished with 
sufficient moisture to bring forward such a mighty 
burthen of grass. 

It is to be observed, that this is not to be expected 
till the land be concocted, changed and altered by the 
sun and air ; for at the first, soon after it is clremed, 
it pincheth with the drought more than any other land. 

Those swamps which are thick overgrown wkh 
moss, when they are so far dried by dreining, that 
the moss will rot, or burn off, that land proveth as 
good as any other dreined land. I mention this, 
because it is best that the farmer work as free from 
discouragement as possible. 

Our dreined land, which is so good for Indian 
corn, and in all other respects is so well adapted for 
producing that grain, yet being moist and of a very 
loose contexture, the corn planted becomes an easy 
prey to crows, and other birds ; unless prevented will 
pull up a great part of it, and destroy the crop ; which 
is a great loss, in land so fruitful as we find such land 
commonly is : this is a great difficulty attending such 
land, which to avoid, take the roots of swamp helle- 
bore, sometimes called poke, tickle weed, bear root ; 
this root is known by these several names in different 
places— boil these roots in so much water as to keep 
them covered an inch deep ; by two hours boiling, 
die liquor will be of sufficient strength — strain it out ; 
put in your corn while the liquor is warm, and let it 
steep twenty hours, then it will be fit for planting. 
This is found to be an effectual security in the case. 

The Reverend Mr. Todd informs me, that having 
met with much trouble and loss, having had his corn 
repeatedly pulled up, lie planted his ground with 






63 



soaked corn, steeped in the aforesaid liquor ; but not 
having enough of that, he ordered the planting to be 
finished with unsoaken corn. The event was, that 
the birds pulled up but two or three hills of the 
soaked corn, but left not one in ten of those hills 
which were planted with the unsoaked corn : this 
which was thus pulled up he planted over again with 
soaked corn, except some hills in the middle of the 
piece which was planted a second time, with unsoak- 
ed corn ; it was planted in the middle, thinking that 
the birds would not find it ; but the result was, as 
before ; the unsoaked was all pulled up, and the hills 
planted with the steeped corn was spared. 

Therefore with a great deal of reason he concludes 
his letttr to me in the following words : — 

" Upon the whole, I think this experiment to be 
a full proof that corn so prepared when planted, 
is secure from the birds ; the knowledge of which I 
cannot but think will he of great service to the 
country, as the preparation is cheap and easy, and 
our swamps seen* by far to be the best lard we 
have for Indian corn. My little swamp this year 
yielded at the rate of above ninety bushels to the acre, 
and was easier and cheaper tilled than the same quan- 
tity of upland." 

Marl is a sort of manure much used in Great Brit- 
ain ; they dig it up, and let it lie exposed to the rain 
and air twelve months, to soften and dissolve, then 
spread it sixty loads to an acre, which they say will 
last fourteen vears. There are three sorts of this fat 
earth, white, blue, and that of a yellowish red, what I 
have found is white. 

Sundry persons having tried the method prescrib- 
ed in the first essay to get water in a pasture where it 
is wanting, and find it to succeed well, as I am inform- 
ed. 

Captain Fisk, of Middletown, having a large pasture 
wholly destitute of water,, and without prospect 



6* $ 

help, but reading that book, he was encouraged, pur- 
suant to the directions there given, he dug a well on 
the side of an hill ; at six feet deep obtained water, 
by trench dug from the bottom of the well let out the 
water into a cistern or , pond, had water not only for 
his cattle, but also to water and enrich the land which 
was lower. This water, as he sayeth is worth more 
than one hundred pounds. I am informed, that he 
hath dug in another place and obtained water, as be- 
fore ; but whether it was with a design to water his 
land, or his cattle, I cannot tell. 

I would direct to another way to make an*artificial 
spring, but I find I have not room for it in this essay. 

Although herd grass be a valuable sort, yet the 
fowl meadow grass hath quite eclipsed its glory. 

The old Romans regarded the study of husbandry 
and the improvement of their own language, as two 
very important parts of learning, men of the first fig- 
ure employed their time in it. Virgil and Varro did 
not think this below the dignity of their pen ; whereas 
with us there is so little care to cultivate our own 
language, that with too much propriety may be 
called our mother tongue : and husbandry is left to 
the invention and conduct of common labourers. 
The product of husbandry is necessary to life, is the 
basis of trade, and sinews of war ; and our own lan- 
guage is the ordinary channel of conveyance for di- 
vinity, law and politics, it is that by which commerce, 
conversation, and all the important affairs of life are 
managed ; therefore both deserve our attention and 
regard. 

But while we are concerned about the common 
support of life, let us have a due regard to, and follow 
that solemn advice given us by a teacher sent from 
God. Joh. 6. ?7. Labour not for the meat which 
perhheth, but for that meat which endureth unto ever- 
lasting life, which the son of man shall give unto t/0Uo 
Let this be our main care and chief concern. 



65 

PART IV. 

I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard 

of the man void of understanding. 
And to, it was all groxvn over with thorns, nettles 

covered the face thereof, and the stone-wall thereof 

was broken down. 
Then I saw, and considered it well : I looked upon it, 

and received instruction. Prov. xxiv. 30, 31, 32. 

IN Norfolk, when they have orrce enriched their 
land, they are careful to order crops, so that the land 
may continue in the same state of fertility, without 
any farther additions of manure ; their method is the 
very reverse of ours, they never seed the land with 
what is exhausting, two or three crops successively, 
but after wheat or barlej r , they sow pease or clover, as 
I find by a book a gentleman was so good as to send 
me, containing a scheme of management, in certain 
farms for thirteen years past. We are not so wise ; 
there is nothing more common, than to put two draw- 
ing crops together, after Indian corn then comes oats, 

The Norfolk method is well calculated for Weath- 
ersfield, Glassenberry, the east side of Hartford, 
Windsor and Springfield ; in these places thejre is 
sand above and clay below, it is the same in many 
other parts of the country, but there are places where 
there is so little clay, ai^dthat so situated, as to render 
this method impracticable ; and therefore ways and 
means to manure, and to increase dung, must be use- 
ful to the farmer, especially considering how little 
dung we make in the ordinary way, and how little 
•all the dung we make will produce. 

The dung of cattle, in the Summer, is very rich, 
and will do great service, if we improve it in the best 
manner ; therefore, to save it and increase the quantity, 
I brffered a yard to be made in the street, proportion - 

Q 



66 

ed to the number of cattle, to be enclosed, it was 
made long and narrow for these two reasons. First, 
for the convenience of ploughing it ; and secondly, 
for the advantage of setting and removing the end- 
fences, so often as I should have occasion to plough 
up the yard ; when the yard was fenced, I put in the 
cows every night, one month ; then opened the two 
ends and ploughed it up, ploughing as near the two 
side fences as possible, then reset the fence, ploughing 
it up thus every month through the whole Summer, 
then carted it upon my next adjoining land, it being ve- 
ry heirvy, a long land carriage is not easy : I found the 
whole furrow depth of earth was become dung, making 
an increase beyond what one would imagine,! had four 
fold more than I should have produced in the com- 
mon way. This dung was spread upon both grass 
land, and corn land : 1 did not find but that its effects 
were equal to other dung. 

Another way by which I have increased the quan- 
tity, is, by carting into the yard, a great quantity of 
sea- ware, sea- wreck, or as it is commonly called, sea- 
weed ; this being trampled and broken short by the 
cattle, and enriched with the dung and stale, becomes 
good dung, in six months time, and is much lighter 
than that made with earth, and consequently much 
more fit for distant improvement. This is the method 
I have most frequently used : but I think the other 
sort, made of earth, to be preferable. 

Before I had tried the way of making earth dung, 
I was afraid that it would deface and spoil the street, 
but in a little time the bald place, by the dtw 9 the sun, 
and other concurring benefits of the atmosphere, 
swarded over again, and recovered to its pristine &tate ; 
so that practice will not be attended with any lasting 
mischievous consequence. Those whose land is so 
full of rocks and stones, that they cannot take benefit 
by the first method,, that is, converting earth to dung,, 



67 

and being far from the sea, can get no sea- weed ; and 
therefore, what can they do to increase their dung, 
the following method may well answer this intention. 

Mr. Masters, of Pennsylvania, an ingenious and 
public spirited farmer, was so good as to write me a 
letter, to inform me how he increased his dung ; his 
way is to hire poor children to gather up the fallen 
dry leaves in the woods, and by fence sides ; puts 
them up in stacks to settle, then carts them home, 
puts them into his yards, his stables and cow-houses, 
where they are poached and trampled in together, 
with the dung and stale of his cattle ; and in the con- 
clusion, makes great increase of manure ; he has tried 
it so far, and so much, as to know it to be a great 
improvement. The dung and stale of beasts is so 
abundantly charged and impregnated with salts, 
proper to promote vegetation; which, to preserve 
entire, it is proper to mix it with hungry poor stuff, 
which will imbibe all the salts both fixed and volatile, 
otherwise the sun will exhale much of the volatile 
part, and the rains will wash off a great deal of the 
fixed salt. 

At Narraganset, I remember I saw swamp mud 
carted into a cow-yard to increase the dung, was told 
that it served to that purpose very well. 

For want of dung, common sea-salt may be made 
use of; a gentleman at Middletown, who came from 
the West- Indies, bought a piece of poor land, put on 
it five bushels of salt to the acre, sowed it with flax, 
a small strip through the whole piece he put no salt 
upon it, the consequence was, the salted part pro- 
duced fine tall flax, and the small strip was poor and 
short. A man of Guilford told me, he had tried it 
upon his wheat land, it assisted and increased his crop 
very well. One of my sons sowed five bushels of 
salt, last fall, upon his wheat ; what will be the con- 
sequence we cannot tell yet— the advance at present 
is not considerable. 



68 

Sea salt seems not immediately adapted to promote 
vegetation, but rather the contrary, especially if there 
be too much of it. It is said that the Isle of Ormas, 
the soil being strongly impregnated with rock salt, is 
very barren. 

In the scriptures we find, that saltness was an indi- 
cation of barreness, natural and judicial. Judges ix* 
45. When he had taken the city, it is said of Abim- 
elech, he slew the people that was therein, and beat 
down the city, and sowed it with salt. 

Of him that trusteth in man, it is said, Jer. xvii. 
6. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and 
shall not see xvhen good cometh, but shall inhabit the 
parched places in the wilderness , in a salt land, and not 
inhabited. 

Moab was threatened by the prophet, that it should 
be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Go- 
morrah. Zeph. ii. 9. The breeding of nettles and 
salt pits. Deut. xxix. 23. And the whole land 
thereof is brimstone and salt, and burning, that is not 
sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein. 

There are two sorts of salt, which do immediately 
promote vegetation, and render the land fruitful. 

One is what is called nitrous salt, this is what is 
contained in dung, the other is called alcalious salt, 
this is what renders ashes such a useful manure, for 
if this salt is dissolved with hot water, and drawn off 
from the ashes, as when we make lee it robs the ash- 
es of its vegetative virtue, so far as it is deprived of 
this salt. 

Common sea salt, although of itself, and in its na- 
ture; it be unfit to divide the earth, and so to promote 
vegetation, yet being of a kindred nature with the other 
salt, the nitrous salt of the air and earth joining with 
it, I conceive it is assimilated, overcome and convert- 
ed to nitrous salt. It is said, that where they make 
salt-petre, after they have drawn out all the salt from 



69 

the earth, or other matter from whence it is extracted, 
they expose the caput mortuum> or matter from 
whence it is drawn, to the air, and in seven years it 
is fit for a new operation, 

Common salt is used in England for manure, and 
is of so much advantage in farming, that Mr. Ellis 
in his books of husbandry, proposes that the duty 
upon salt should be taken oif in favour of agriculture. 

Another way of mending land, is, what they call 
in England, green dressing ; this is by sowing buck 
wheat, oats or rye, and when it is grown up and is 
full of sap, they plough it in, after this let it lie till 
fully rotten, then plough again and sow your wheat. 
I am told the Dutch people, on poor pine plains, in 
this way, have fine crops of wheat ; but for green 
dressing I should prefer above all, sowing miliet, on 
the account of the cheapness of seeding the land, 
the cost is but a trine ; the stalk and leaf growing 
large, it must afford a good large coat to turn in 
when ploughed. Being once at Kent, an old coun- 
try farmer had been in practice of green dressing, he 
had ploughed in green oats ; it seemed to alter the 
colour of die land, it looked much better than the rest 
of the lot where there was nothing but a furrow that 
parted. The farmer said, that he could raise land or 
increase the strength to a great degree in a few years, 
in the following manner ; after his oats were harvest- 
ed, he added some seed to the scattered oats, plough- 
ed it in, at the end of September ploughed in the 
green oats, and sowed it with rye ; the next sum- 
mer, when the rye was well grown and full of sap, 
ploughed that in, at common sowing time, it would 
be fit to produce a large crop of wheat ; all the cost 
of ploughing and seed, is not so much as the cost of 
dung, carting and spreading, if we can get it, but 
the difficulty is, it is not to be had upon any terms ; 
there are very few such bad husbands as to sell their 
dung, 



70 

Mr. Edmond Quincy, of Boston, a gentleman of 
learning and ingenuity, to whom I am indebted for 
many useful hints and observations — he informs me, 
that having a son residing at Portmore, in England, 
the young gentleman writes, that some farmers in 
that neighborhood are entered into a new practice, 
which is to sow their dry land which is not fit for 
pasture with rye, and feed their sheep upon it, so that 
it may not spindle or grow up : that this feed makes 
excellent mutton, and will continue to grow from 
year to year without any tillage or resowing ; he doth 
not say how long it will continue : possibly the prac- 
tice is so new, that they do not know themselves, I 
have observed that where sheep are well kept, and 
remain upon the land night and day, the land will 
grow better. As rye will endure the heat of a strong 
sun much better than grass, 'tis seldom hurt with 
drought : I suppose this may be of great service in 
our Southern Colonies, where the heat comes so fast, 
that the grass has not time to cover and shelter the 
roots from the piercing rays of the sun : the advan- 
tage of the grass growing up before there is a strong 
heat, is, that the grass gathers and preserves the dews 
for the benefit of the roots : when dew falls upon 
naked and unsheltered land that is not ploughed, 
made soft, and so fitted to drink up, and retain the 
dews, or well cloathed with grass ; what falls in the 
night is exhaled in the day, 'and thus the ground is 
robbed of that which is the chief riches of- the atmos- 
phere. 

If I understand it right, this being the state of some 
of our Colonies, the above named method of making 
artificial pasture with rye, may be of advantage to 
them, and of use also to us where the soil is dry. 



71 

That wheat and rye bear drought much better than 
grass, is an old observation preserved in one of the 
English proverbs — 

Wet May makes short corn and long hay, 
Dry May makes long corn and short hay. 

As the old English proverbs contain truth and 
good sense, founded on due observation and experi- 
ence, I have a fondness for them. 

The Honorable Society for promoting Husbandry 
and Manufactures in Ireland, published a way of 
raising calves, that appears rational, natural and easy. 
As this essay may fall into such hands as may never 
see it, unless it be by this conveyance ; I shall insert 
it with the advantages that arise from it. 

" Take the best English hay, chop and bruise it, 
put it into a churn or barrel, pour boiling water there- 
on, in such proportion as that it will be well impreg- 
nated with the spirit and virtue of the hay. Never let 
the calf suck at all : for the first ten days, give a mix- 
ture of three quarters of milk, and one quarter hay 
tea ; the next ten days, half milk and half hay tea ; 
all the rest of the time, till the calf is fit to wean, give 
three quarters hay tea, and one quarter milk :" they 
say that calves brought up in the way will not be 
pot-bellied. By this means the natural food of cattle 
is prepared, by extracting the nutritive virtue and 
spirit of hay, mixed in a fluid, and so fitted to the 
tender stomach of such young creatures. 

I apprehend there are many advantages resulting 
from this method. 

First-— It is generally allowed, that the milk of a 
good cow r , in six months, is equal in value to her 
body ; the saving two months milk is considerable, 
or if it were but one month, it is not to be despised. 

Second— -This way is much better for the cow. 

A farmer of my acquaintance, who kept a stock of 
seventy head of cattle, always brought up his calves 



by hand, giving them all the milk ; this he did with- 
out any such saving, only for the benefit of his cows. 

Third — Another advantage is, that the cow will 
hardly fail of going to bull ; there is more loss in a 
cow's going farrow, than people ordinarily imagine ; 
it is a great charge to keep cattle winter and sum- 
mer: an ox pays the charge of keeping with his. 
labour ; young cattle in their growth,, a fatting beast, 
with his fat and flesh; a breeding cow pays with 
her calf and milk, but a dry cow pays nothing at all. 

Fourth — I may add also, that this way of bringing 
up calves, saves . the trouble and bawling noise of 
weaning. If those farmers who have great stocks, 
will not be at this trouble, yet one would think,, at 
least, that those people who have many children, and 
but one or two cows, should readily fall into his 
saving way. < 

It is some time since I saw the above mentioned 
receipt, so am not certain as to the periods, whether 
a week or ten days, and think it not material. 

There is a weed which grows in wet meadows, 
and is something like the haums, or vines of pease ; 
when it is hayed with the grass, the cattle eat it free- 
ly ; it is of such mischievous, noxious quality, that 
it makes mares, cows and ewes cast their young, to 
the great detriment of farmers. 

A person of good credit told me, that by giving 
his cattle a cock or two of such hay, he lost by it, to 
the value of forty or fifty pounds : not knowing the 
botanical name of this plant : from its ill and singular 
quality, we call it stink weed : I had abundance of it 
in one swamp, and I know by experience, that drein- 
ing will entirely destroy it, and it is for this reason 
that I mention it. 

There is another weed called St. John's wort 
fills the ground, we are obliged to cut in with the 
grass, to rake it, cart it, house it, carry it out, and 



• 73 

•when we have done, no creature will eat one mouth- 
ful of it, nor doth it make dung, and consequently 
is a dead weight upon the farmer. To kill and erad- 
icate this, put in* sheep early in the spring, and in 
two years they will destroy it without any hurt to 
sheep. 

Some trials I made last year, gives me reason to 
hope, that I have found out certain seasons for cut- 
ting bushes, by which they will be more effectually 
destroyed by once cutting, than I have ever yet 
found, till now, which if I find according to my 
hopes, I desigu in my next essay to communicate it. 

In a former essay, I mentioned the strange and 
peculiar property of foul mead j\v grass, that it will 
hold out- to be in season for cutting, from the begin- 
ning of July till some tine in October, this I won- 
dered at, but viewing some of it attentively, I think 
I have found the reason of it : when it is grown 
about three feet high, it then falls down, but doth not 
rot like other grass when lodged ; in a little time 
after it is thus fallen down, at every joint it puts forth 
a new branch ; now to maintain this young brood of 
succors, there must be a plentiful course of sap con- 
veyed up through the .main stem, or straw; by this 
means the grass is kept green, and fit for mowing all 
this long period. 

Whether this young growth from the joints, be 
owing to the horizontal position of the straw, or 
whether it is a confirmation, of that doctrine, that the 
joints of plants are seed-vessels, 1 leave to naturalists 
to determine. 

I find by experience, that the best time to mow 
this grass, is when these new branches or succors 
have obtained to their full growth. 

He commends and encourageth the clearing and 
dreining of swamps and bogs, " as there is a depth 
of rich soil, for the nourishment of the rankest vege- 

10 



74 

tables, cannot fail of being the best of every man's 
estate who is possessed of them ; thinks they will 
prove like the dreined bogs in Ireland." 

This branch of husbandry is improved and advan- 
cing yearly, and in many places, makes a fine shew. 
Take a view of a swamp in its original state, Cull of 
bogs, overgrown with flags, brakes, poisonous woods 
and vines, with other useful product, the genuine off- 
spring of stagnant waters. 

Its miry bottom, an harbour to turtles, toads, efts, 
snakes, and other creeping vermin. The baleful 
thickets of brambles, and the dreary shades of larger 
growth ; the dwelling- place of the owl and the bit- 
tern ; a portion of foxes, and a cage of every unclean 
and hateful bird. Now take another survey of the 
same place, after the labour of clearing, ditching, 
dreining, burning, and other needful culture has 
passed upon it. 

Behold it now cloathed with sweet verdant grass, 
adorned with the lofty wide spreading well-set Indian 
corn; the yellow-barley; the silver coloured ilax; 
the ramping hemp, beautified with fine ranges of 
cabbage; the delicious melon, and the best of tur- 
nips, all pleasing to the eye, and, many, agreeable to 
the taste'; a wonderful change this ! and all brought 
about in a short time ; a resemblance of creation, as 
much as we, impotent beings can attain to, the hap- 
py product of skill and industry. 

Sumptuous buildings and fine gardens, afford a 
pleasing prospect, and strike the eye agreeably ; 
what are the gaudy shews, the fleeting joys of Rane- 
lagh ; the glittering scenes, the chanting music, the 
splendid banquets of Vauxhall, compared with the 
more than rural pleasures, to be enjoyed in these new 
sprung fields, considered as a rich source of supply 
for man and beast? but more especially considered as a 
compendious lasting fund of charity ? it being a more 



75 

extensive charity to prevent beggary, than to relieve 
it. These views serve to waft away the soul upon 
the wings of exulting elevated thoughts and warm 
desires, towards the Great Creator and Beneficent 
Ruler of the Universe ; to Him who is the Father of 
Light and Life, from whom doth descend every good 
an.1 perfect gift. 

This affords a pleasure that repays much cost and 
care : this a pleasure which the stranger to serious 
thought and reflection intermeddles not with-all. 

While we are in the world, we are necessarily con- 
cerned with the world : Let us therefore set our af- 
fections on things above, and not on things on the earth, 
for we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God. 

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then 
shall ye also appear with him in glory, Col. iii. 2. 3. 4. 



PART V. 



For your sakes no doubt this is written ; that he that 
plougheth, should plough in hope, and that he that 
tkresheth in hope, should be partaker of his hope. 
1 Cor. ix. 10. 

The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold, 
there/ore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. 
Prov. xx. 4. 

WEALTH or riches may be considered as nomi- 
nal or real, natural or artificial : nominal or artificial 
are those things which derive all, or the greatest part 
of their value, from opinion, custom, common con- 
sent, or a stamp of authority, by which a value is set; 
such as silver, gold, pearl, precious stones, pictures. 



76 

bills of credit. Some of these things have a degree 
of intrinsic value in them, but not in any proportion 
to the value to which they are raised by custom, or 
consent : for instance, silver and gold have a certain 
degree of intrinsic worth, but nothing equal to iron 
in the necessary service of life, either for instrument 
or medicine.* A diamond hath an intrinsic worth 
from its hardness ; but as to many other precious 
stones, a load-stone, a mill-stone, or a grind- stone, is 
of much more real worth and tibe to mankind. Peai Is 
are prescribed in medicine for great people : but is 
not of use but as a testacous powder ; and for that 
use an oyster shell will do as well : but many things 
in high esteem have no intrinsic worth at all. 

Natural or real wealth are such things as supply 
the necessities or conveniences of life : these are ob- 
tained from the earth, or the sea ; such as corn, flesh, 
or fish, fruits, food and raiment. 

Husbandry and navigation are the true source of 
natural or real wealth. Without husbandry, even 
navigation cannot be carried on ; without it we should 
want many of the comforts and conveniences of life. 
Husbandry then is a subject of great importance, 
without which all commerce and communication 
must come to an end, all social advantages cease, 
comfort and earthly pleasure be no more. Nay, this 
is the very basis and foundation of all nominal or arti- 
ficial wealth and riches. This rises and falls, lives 
or dies, just in proportion to the plenty or scarcity of 
real riches or, natural wealth. We have a pregnant 
proof of this, 2 Kings vi. 25. And there was a great 
famine in Samaria ; and behold shey besieged it until 

* As the Indians of Peru, long before they had knowledge of any 
other parts of the world, although they had no iron, yet they had plenty 
of gold and silve;* If in that day, an axe of iron cou'd have been ob- 
tained for ten pounds of gold, the purchaser with reason might think 
he had a good bargain. 



77 

■an asses head was sold for four score pieces of silver, 
and the fourth part of a kab of doves dung for five 
pieces of silver. With submission, I rather think it 
should be rendered the contents of the dove's crop. 
Tne dove's returning hoiue from the field with crops 
full of pease and other grain, would, when extracted, 
be a welcome entertainment to the hungry inhabitants, 
and slII for a good price ; whereas the proper excre- 
ments or dung, especially of such animals who void 
no urine, is so loathsome, and so destitute of nourish- 
ment, as to be unfit for food, even in times of greatest 
extremity. 

If second hand food has been so high in the mar- 
ket, how valuable are the clean productions of the 
earth? Husbandry is the true mine from whence are 
drawn true riches and real wealth.. As dung and 
other manure is of such advantage in raising corn, in 
the foregoing essay the reader had set before him the 
Norfolk husbandry, where we find that clay answers 
all the ends and purposes of dung, and for duration 
much exceeds it : as also divers ways of making, 
and methods to increase the quantity of dung or 
manure. 

In this essay, I design to shew how land may be 
tilled, and the dung so applied as that a little dung 
shall extend as far, and*do as much to promote and 
produce a crop of corn, as six times so much dung 
applied in the common way. The old worn out land 
is to be tilled in such a manner that affords a prospect, 
that the same land in two or three years, shall pro- 
duce crops without dung, or any sort of manure, in 
some measure agreeable to the method of the excel- 
lent and truly learned Mr. Tull ; a summary of whose 
principles or doctrine, I here present to the reader in 
his own words : — 

"The only way we have to enrich the earth, is to 
divide it into many parts, by manure or by tillage, or 



78 

by both : this is called pulveration. The salt of dung 
divides or pulverizes the soil by fermentation, tillage 
by the attrition or contusion of instruments, of which 
the plough is the chief. The superficies or surfaces 
of those divided parts of the earth, is the artificial 
pasture of plants, and affords the vegetable pabulum 
to such roots as come in contact with it. There is 
no way to exhaust the earth of this pabulum, but by 
the roots of plants, and plants are now p.oved to ex- 
tend their roots more than was formerly thought they 
did. Division is infinite, and the more parts the soil 
is divided into, the more of that superficies or vege- 
table pasture must it have, and more of those benefits 
which descend from the atmosphere will it receive. 
Therefore if the earth be divided, if it be by tillage, it 
answers the same end as if it had been performed by 
dung." 

In the fore cited passage, Mr. Tull has had but 
little regard to the capacity of his reader, nor will it 
be much better understood than if it had been wrote 
in an unknown tongue, there being so many words 
used by him which common farmers do not under- 
stand ; and therefore that book has not been so use- 
ful as otherwise it might have been. That excellent 
writer seems to me to have entered deeper into the 
true principles of husbandry, than any author I have 
ever read. Had he taken pains to accomodate him- 
self to the unlearned, his book would have been much 
more useful than now it is. 

I am very sensible, that the low stile, the plainness 
and simplicity of these es^ays, has exposed them to 
the censure of those who do not well consider for 
whom they are intended and written. 

It is much easier to let the pen run forward in a 
pompous parade of learning, than to bring it into such 
subjection as to convey and communicate important 
truths in such words as shall be understood, and to 



79 

use such plainness and simplicity as will bring all 
down to the level of the most inferior capacity. 

It was a learned man of the age, instructed in tlie 
school at Tarsus, who completed his studies in the 
famous college at Jerusalem, under the tuition of 
Gamaliel, the illustrious president of that renowned 
scat of learning ; he was the very man who said, 
1 Cor. xiv. 19. I thank God I speak with tongues 
more than you all ; yet in the Church J had rather 
speak jive words with my understanding, that I might 
teach others a/so, than ten thousand words in an un- 
known tongue. 

I purpose to proceed in the same plain simple man- 
ner, to set before the reader the way of mending our 
poor land, and raising crops, either without any dung 
at all, or if any be applied, it shall be in a small quan- 
tity, that the expence will be but little, compared 
with the common way of husbandry. 

In this undertaking I pretend to no other merit 
than ihat, 

1. To explain the doctrine or principles of Mr. 
Tull, in such a manner as to be open to any com- 
mon understanding. 

2. To offer such reasons and proofs for the sup- 
port of these principles, as will naturally occur. 

3. To direct to the performance of the work with 
instruments less intricate, more plain, cheap and 
commodious, than, those used and described bv Mr, 
Tull. 

Under these three heads m?y, I think, be compre- 
hended all that I design at present to say of this meth* 
od of husbandry, until time and experience shall en- 
able me to write farther upon this important subject ; 
for if I succeed according to my expectation and de- 
sire, I apprehend husbandry, in the tillage of land, 
Will stand upon a good footing. 



80 

The only way we have to enrich the land, is by 
dung, or by tillage seperately, or by both of them 
together. It is performed by dividing the earth into 
many parts, or as the common way of speaking, it is 
done by making the ground mellow and soft, so that 
the roots may freely pass and find their proper nour- 
ishment. The more meilow and fine the earth is 
made, the more roots will be sent out, from corn or 
whatever is sowed or planted in such mellow land, 
and the more soft and mellow the ground is made, 
there will be not only more roots, but they will be 
longer and extend farther, so that the corn, turnip, 
carrot, or whatever plant it is, will receive so much 
the more nourishment, and consequently grow so 
much the bigger and better. Dung, or any other 
manure, divides the ground, sets the parts at a dis- 
tance, and so gives a free passage to the roots of 
plants. In this action the salts in dung hath much 
the same operation and effect as leaven, or emptyings 
hath on dough ; it makes it rise, makes it light, that 
is sets the parts at a distance. If nothing be done to 
divide the parts, and make the ground mellow by 
ploughing, or dung, or both, no crop can be expected. 
Sow or plant upon untilled land, which is hard and 
uncultivated, no corn will grow. If the earth can be 
as well divided, and made as mellow by ploughing, 
digging or hoeing, why should not tillage do without 
dung : provided the tillage be equal or in proportion 
to dung ? To do this in the common way of repeat- 
ed plain ploughing and harrowing, would be too much 
charge and labour ; for Mr. Tull said, that three 
times plain ploughing did only prepare the land for 
tillage. There is a way by tillage alone, without 
dung, to make the land fine and mellow, and this way 
is cheap and effectual ; is done in the following man 
ner. 



81 

First plough your ground plain, and plough it 
deep ; if you have no dung, you must have the more 
loose mellow earth ; when it is thus ploughed, har- 
row it well with an iron tooth harrow, let it lie a 
fortnight exposed to the sun, air and dews, then 
plough it into ridges ; to every ridge there must 
be eight furrows of the plain ploughing, two furrows 
covered, four ploughed, and two left open ; so that 
in ridge ploughing the team and plough travels but 
half so far as in plain ploughing ; ridge ploughing 
will cost but half so much as plain ploughing. 

I suppose I need not give any particular directions 
concerning ploughing the land into ridges, every 
ploughman understands this, or if he doth not, he may 
soon learn it of them that do. When it is thus 
ploughed into ridges, it is prepared to plant with 
wheat, or cabbages, carrots, or what else you see 
fit to plant. In what manner, and with what instru- 
ments the seeds of wheat, turnips, or cabbages are to 
be planted, I shall describe under the third head, 
when I come to speak of the instruments by which 
it is performed. I shall only add in this place that 
the wheat is to be planted in two rows on the middle 
of the ridge, the rows to be at ten inches distance; 
the cabbages and turnips in one row on the middle of 
the ridge, the turnips at six inches distance from each 
other, cabbages at a foot and a half, or two feet dis- 
tance ; carrots are to be planted in two rows at ten 
inches distance, that is, the space between the rows 
is to be ten inches, the carrots to be planted at six 
inches distance one from the other, as they stand in 
the line or row. 

The reader will observe, that as yet there is no 
more tillage applied to the land than what is common 
and usual in our ordinary way of husbandry. Now, 
what follows, is that in which the art and mistery doth 
consist, and when it is described and set before vou, 
1! 



82 

will appear so simple, so little, so mean, that it will 
be to you as go wash in Jordan, was to Naaman the 
Syrian. Suppose it be turnips, cabbage or carrots 
planted in the Spring, (for as to what relates to wheat, 
the golden grain, I purpose to treat of that distinctly 
by itself) as soon as your cabbages and turnips can 
be seen, weed them, with a small hand hoe. The 
carrots for the first time must be weeded with the 
fingers ; this is tedious work ; when this is done, and 
the plants a little grown so as to be plainly seen, then 
take one yoke of oxen, a long yoke so long that one 
ox may go in one furrow, and the other ox in the oth- 
er, and the ridge between, in the same manner as we 
plough Indian corn ; and with a common ox plough, 
turn off a furrow from the ridge, coming as close to 
the plants as you can, and not plough them up ; you 
may come within two or three inches, if the oxen and 
plough are good. Thus take off a furrow from each 
side of every ridge till all is ploughed ; let it lye in 
this state a fortnight or three weeks, then with the 
plough turn up the two furrows to the ridge ; stay 
about as long as before, and turn the two furrows off 
from the ridge again ; the oftener this is repeated, so 
much the better : we ordinarily do it but four times ; 
but seven times will do better. When the plants 
grow larger, you must keep the plough at a greater 
distance ; for if you plough as near the plants as when 
they are small, you will cut off too many roots. 

You must hoe between the rows of carrots with a 
narrow hand hoe, to kill the weeds ; and to till the 
ground between the rows, you must mind to dig deep. 

Turnips, and whatever is planted in a single line 
or row, must be tended with a hand hoe, while the 
plants are young, and *till all the weeds are destroyed 
so that you may use the plough. I have been obliged 
to enter into the practical part of this sort of husban- 
dry, without which I should not be able to explain 



83 

the principles, or doctrinal part, as I proposed under 
the first head. 

1. This way of tilling land makes it exceeding fine, 
soft and mellow, beyond what you would imagine : 
this, we have shewed already, is one thing requisite 
and needful. 

2. By this tillage we open such clods and parts of 
earth as never were opened before, and consequently 
never was touched by any root ; its whole nourishing 
virtue remains entire : in short it is new land. Every 
one knows what new land will do before its native 
and original strength and vigour is consumed and ex- 
hausted by the roots of corn and other plants. Thus 
this sort of tillage doth, in a degree, furnish us with 
new land. In this way old things become new. 

3. In this way of tillage we entirely destroy and 
extirpate all weeds and grass, yea, even that stubborn 
grass called blue grass, which is so hurtful to corn ; 
by which a whole crop is frequently almost destroy- 
ed. This grass by many is called Dutch grass ; and 
probably that grass in England there called couch 
grass, may be the same, and miscalled here Dutch, 
from a resemblance or likeness of sound ; their far- 
mers making the same complaint of it as ours do 
here. The destruction of weeds and grass is of great 
advantage in tillage. Weeds very much exhaust the 
land, hinder and damnify the crop : the more these 
robbers are destroyed, the more nourishment there is 
for corn. 

This method not only destroys the weeds for the 
present, but for the future also ; for ploughing stirs 
up the latent seeds of weeds, sets them a growing, 
and then destroys them when they are come up. The 
seeds of weeds are numerous and hardy, they will 
lye many years in the ground, and when by the 
plough are properly situated for growth, they will 
come up very plentifully : charlock, commonly called 



84 

terrify, which cannot be subdued in the common way 
of tillage, I suppose in this way, may be effectually 
conquered. 

That the destruction of weeds is one design we 
have in view when we till land, is what is allowed by 
all; nay, many think that this is the only end, 
and at least they, act and conduct as if they thought 
so : if it were not so, why do they neglect to hoe and 
and plough if there be no weeds ? And why do they 
aim at going no deeper than just to cut up the weeds ? 
But there are other great advantages to be had by 
tillage, besides killing weeds, as has been said already, 
and will further appear. 

4. This way of repeated ploughing keeps the land 
from going out of tillage. If land be never so much 
ploughed and harrowed, and made ever so light and 
mellow, yet in a year's time the tillage is spent in a 
great degree. The weight of great rains, and the 
natural weight of the earth, settles it down, so that it 
is daily growing closer and harder ; there is less and 
less room for the roots to extend and spread, find their 
food and get nourishment ; for the roots in plants are 
as the mouth is to man and beast ; the more roots the 
more giowth. When land, by the law of gravitation, 
is thus continually sinking down, closing together, 
and so going out of tillage, we then plough it once in 
a month, or oftner, if there be need. Thus the tillage 
is kept up in the same state as at first. I find that a 
great her vy rain, if it fall soon after the land has been 
ploughed, it will need ploughing again : in dry 
weather it will continue in a state of tillage much 
longer. Our Indian corn has this repeated tillage ; 
but our wheat suffers much for want of after tillage : 
we sow one year and reap the next, so that from sow- 
ing time till harvest, is ten or eleven months. 

5. There is in land a twofold and opposite state 
"which renders tillage absolutely necessary : this re^ 



85 

pelted ploughing answers for both. In the common 
and ordinary state of land, it is too hard and close, 
the parts are so nigh that there are no holes or pas- 
sag is It- ft for the roots to spread downwards and si^e 
ways ; or at least these pores, holes or passages, are 
too small and too few to give room for the roots : 
often and repeated ploughing sets the particles of 
earth t ,t such a distance, and so enlargeth these pores 
or holes in the earth, that the growth of plants is by 
this means greatly promoted. 

Although this be the ordinary state of land which 
makes tillage necessary; yet there is some land in a 
state just the reverse : it is too light, its parts are at 
too great a distance, the pores and passages are too 
wide, so that the roots are not big enough to fill the 
pores, or holes. If the roots do not touch the earth, 
it cannot get nourishment : the root should be en- 
closed on all sides by the earth. Every one knows 
that roots above ground in the open air, can do the 
plant no good. All the difference between roots 
under ground, which do not touch the earth, and 
some roots above ground, is, that one is shaded, and 
the other is exposed to the sun and wind : but as 
roots in the most hollow and light land, touch the 
earth in some places, so they get some nourishment 
and keep alive, yet the plant makes but a poor 
progress. 

I have a piece of summer wheat in a dreined 
swamp, that almost died of this disease : the land was 
so new that it would not bear a team, so that it could 
not be ploughed ; the top earth was exceeding light 
and puffy ; the seed was howed in, it came up and 
grew well, so long as the blade could live upon the 
milk of the wheat kernel ; but when that store was 
spent, and the time was come that it must live by 
nourishment obtained by the roots, it turned yellow, 
and the tops died : one of my sons tqld me the wheat 



66 

would all die ; but an heavy rain fell, which so closed 
and pressed this light earth together, and so lessened 
the pores, that the roots were enclosed on all sides, 
the corn recovered its colour, grew vigorously and 
well, and put up good large ears. This land as much 
required ploughing as hard heavy land would have 
done. Repeated ploughing in land that is too light, 
and the pores too large, will settle it down and close 
it together, contract and lessen the pores, as well as 
raise the heavy land, and enlarge its pores. This 
seeming contradiction, this blowing hot and cold out 
the same mouth, may be well enough reconciled, 
and accounted for in a philosophical manner : but so 
long as experience shews that all this is true, it will 
be to no advantage to the farmer to say more about 
it : nor should I have entered so far into the philoso- 
phy of tillage as I have done, were it not necessary 
for a practical farmer to understand it so far as to 
make a judgment, and see into the reason of this new 
kind of tillage and farming : and this is the more 
needful, as there is a prejudice in men's minds against 
what is new, or at least what men suppose to be new. 

6. This method or way of repeated ploughing, 
fits and prepares the land to receive and retain all' the 
benefits of the atmosphere : it is now open to receive 
the floating particles of sulphur, and the nitrous salts 
of the air, the benefit of the sun's rays, which, when 
accompanied with a sufficient degree of moisture, 
enlivens and invigorates all nature. When the win- 
ter hath brought a universal gloom upon the face of 
the vegetable creation, paleness and death appear on 
all sides : the Psalmist saith of it, thou hidest thy face 
they are troubled. Then speaking of the sun, thou 
sendest forth thy spirit they are created, and thou re- 
newest the face of the earth. 

But above all this, we are hereby put in possession 
of the dews, which is one of the rich treasures of 



87 

the atmosphere; when land is made fine a good 
depth, it is prepared with open mouth, to drink in 
and retain the dews : when the dew falls upon land 
that is untilled, or but poorly tilled, the ground being 
hard, it doth not sink deep, so tne next day's sun 
carries it all off again. It is the same if land be too 
light and loose ; there is not a sufficient connection 
of parts to convey the dew from one particle of earth 
to another : I apprehend that the moisture of the dew 
passeth down in well prepared land as water is con- 
veyed through a rag in filtration, if the rag hath large 
holes in it the water will stop : but let this be as it 
will, it is certain, and known to every observing far- 
mer, that the best tilled land in a dry time, always is 
moist er, and bears the drought much better than the 
same sort of land which is but poorly tilled ; that 
Iudian corn, which is the best ploughed and hoed, 
will always bear the drought best. And what is the 
reason ? because the land is prepared to receive and 
retain the dew. Mr. Evelin made the following ex- 
periment ; he dug a hole in the ground a good depth, 
reduced the enrth to line powder, and filled up the 
hole with it : a drought came on, this powdered 
earth was moist to the bottom, when the adjoining 
land was exceeding hard and dry. Another experi- 
ment was made thus, a gallon of rain-water was put 
into a bowl, and a gallon of dew water in another 
vessel, and set them to dry away in the sun ; the con- 
sequence was, the sediment or settlings of the dew 
water was more in quantity, blacker and richer than 
that of the rain water. The dews and sdts of the 
air, is all by which the lard is enriched ; for the other 
advantages of ploughing are but transient : the ad- 
vantage this way is so much, that Mr. Tull saith ? 
that land he hath improved this way, by this kind of 
husbandry, going into another hand, who used it in 
the common way of husbandry , that part of the field 



88 

was so much enriched by the new tillage, that there 
was a visible difference for the better seven years 
after. I suppose, that it is this alone which changed 
the colour of my land in six months ; for having 
ploughed very deep, and turned up much fox-colour- 
ed dead earth, it soon became of a good brOwn 
colour ; so that this kind of tillage seems likely to 
put us in possession of Joseph's blessing : of which 
we have an account, Deut. xxxiii. 1 ), 14. and of Jo- 
seph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land for the 
precious things of heaven , for the dew, and for the 
deep that coucheth beneath: and for the precious ft uits 
brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things 
put forth by the moon. Some understand by the deep 
that coucheth beneath, to be the springs and subter- 
raneous waters : but it seems more likely, to intend 
the riches of the under earth which coucheth beneath ; 
which, like a couching lion, must be roused and rais- 
ed up by a proper tillage, in order to exert its full 
strength. 

Thus I have explained the principles of this kind 
of husbandry, the foundation and reason of it, in as 
plain and easy a manner as I can. 

Before I took any step or pace towards this sort 
of tillage, I read all I could find upon this subject 
with care, thought and studied on it with attention ; 
wrote to my good friend, Mr. John Bartram, a farmer 
in Pennsylvania, a man of worth, to know his opinion 
• of it. He judiciously observed, that England, where 
it had been practiced with success, was an island, 
having the sea on all sides, the air must be filled 
with more vapours and larger dews, than what we 
enjoy upon the continent : their atmosphere being 
much more replete with riches for the earth, than 
what is to be expected in our dry thin air. Notwith- 
standing all this, it ran strongly in my head to try ; 
for I considered, that, as God had not left himself 



89 

without witness, in that he had given us rain and fruit- 
ful seasons, so, in some degree, he hath given us the 
other benefits of the atmosphere, to fill our hearts 
xvithfood and gladness ; therefore thought it our duty 
to take all the advantage of it that we can : and that 
we would try the method as far as we could, without 
the proper instruments ; how much there was of 
truth in the doctrine or principles, if used and appli- 
ed in this climate : and so proceed, or forbear to get 
the drill plough, and other instruments, as we should 
find encouragement ; having made some trials one 
year, this leads me to the second thing. 

2. To offer such reasons and proofs for the sup- 
port of those principles, as did occur upon the one 
year's trial which I made. After my land was pre- 
pared and ploughed into ridges, it was planted with 
cabbages, carrots, turnips, onions and beats, and a 
furrow ploughed off from each side of the ridge, and 
then ploughed on : and this being repeated four or 
five times from Spring to Fall, the event was, the 
weeds were killed, the ground grew fine and mellow, 
clods and knots broken and reduced to dust ; the 
plants put out numerous roots, spread and grew very 
finely ; all the ground was mellow, not only the fur- 
rows which were ploughed, but also the comb or 
ridge in the middle, as it was narrow and so exposed 
to the air and dew on three sides, it was struck 
through, grew mellow, and received as mush advan- 
tage by the tillage, as that part of the ridge which 
was ploughed off and on. The land being ploughed 
deep, there was a great quantity of fine earth pre- 
pared to receive the dews and salts of the air, 
and sufficient room for the roots to spread and 
branch out on all sides, so that every thing grew a= 
pace, and were large, although there was no dung 
applied ; the same land would produce in the ordina- 
ry wav, carrots ncbieeer than a common candle ; in 

* -J w €j 

12 



90 

this there were many, eight, ten, and some twelve 
inches in circumference ; they were so large, that 
three ridges of fifteen rods long each, two rows on a 
ridge, produced more than twenty bushels ; so an 
whole acre's product, yielding in the same propor- 
tion, would be two hundred and thirty bushels ; 
had the three ridges yielded no more than twenty 
bushels, besides the greater increase of the crop, it is 
done cheap and with more ease, as the horse plough 
performs* the work with more expedition than it can 
be done by hand, so it is done much better for the 
present crop, and also mends and enricheth the land, 
and prepares it for future improvement. It is easier 
this way, to raise five bushels of carrots than one in 
the common way. I also tried this method of tillage 
widi turnips planted in a single row ; by the middle 
of June they were surprisingly large; as I did not 
weigh or measure them, I am not able to give a per- 
fect account of them. 

In a former essay, I made mention of a society in 
Scotland, consisting of three hundred members, many 
of them noblemen of the first rank ; this society was 
erected to promote husbandry and manufactures ; 
they published a book of their transactions ; by the 
favour of Mr. Collinson, of London, I had an oppor- 
tunity to read it, and find in their fallow year, instead 
of the old chargeable way of Summer fallow, they 
plough into ridges, then plant cabbages and turnips : 
their cabbages and the early sort are ripe before the 
time of sowing wheat ; with frequent horse plough- 
ing they grow large, and the land in fine order for 
sowing wheat in the common way. By this means, 
they sometimes raise a crop of great value, and have 
their land in better order for wheat than in the old 
way of fallowing their land. The Lord Rea, observ- 
ed to the society, that he expected to see that part of 
his wheat which grew where the rows of cabbages 



91 

grew before to be poor, but was surprised to find, 
that in the very line where the cabbages grew, in that 
range was the biggest wheat. One would expect 
that the land would have been exhausted by so many 
large plants. The true reason of what appeared so 
strange, was this, the broad leaves of cabbage made 
a large shade, and within that shade there would be a 
swift undulation of the air, and consequently a stream 
of the nitrous and sulphurous particles of the air, 
would be drawn in and lodged there ; I suppose by 
this means, that part of the land became more enrich- 
ed than the open part of the field. 

Pease are found to make land mellow, to enrich, 
and so well to prepare it for wheat, that I have many 
times known farmers to invite others, who had pease, 
to sow their land without paying any rent, merely for 
the advantage it w r ould be to their crop of wheat. 
Pease make a shade : where the land is shaded the 
air will be condensed, and consequently, make room 
for the rushing in of more air, so that in this shade 
there will be a greater lodgment of the nitrous salts, 
and consequently the land will be made rich. The 
same is found by experience to be true of potatoes, 
and therefore, it is accounted to be an enricher of 
land. It has been found that potatoes may be suc- 
cessively planted without dung, and have good crops. 

It will be asked, if so, why do not weeds, which 
make shades, enrich the ground ? The reason is 
plain, because the land is not tilled, and so prepared 
to receive and retain the dews and salts of the air : so 
turn it and set it in every light, we shall see and find, 
that tillage tends to enrich land, and fits it to bring 
forth fruit. My carrots put forth such numbers of 
small fibrous roots, for the nourishment of the main 
root, that when the time came to pull them up, they 
were comparatively, hairy like a rat. Rqots are to 
plants as the mouth is to animals ; therefore, in feeding 



92 - 

plants we have the greater advantage ; an horse, ox or 
sheep, has but one mouth ; provide as much hay and 
provender as you will, he can eat but such a propor- 
tion ; if you give Benjamin's mess, five times more 
than he can eat, it will do no good. But it is other- 
wise with plants, the more provision you make for 
them of good rich mould, the more roots will they put 
forth, take in so much the more food, and consequent- 
ly, grow so much the larger. 

Another proof of the truth of the doctrine, or prin- 
ciples, laid down as the ground work or basis of this 
new husbandry, I shall borrow from the old husband- 
ry, in the manner of raising Indian corn. The land 
being previously prepared, the land planted, and corn 
come up, we plough a furrow off' from the corn on 
each side, then hoe it ; the next time plough up to the 
corn; so that this tillage is nearly the same with what is 
now proposed for wheat, or whatever we would plant ; 
only by the way, I would observe, that the plough- 
ing between the rows is so shallow, as though they 
had nothing else in view and design, but only to kill 
the grass and weeds ; whereas it is found by experi- 
ence, that if there be no grass or weeds, the plough- 
ing and hoeing will make the corn grow ; it is also 
found true by experience, that the better the land is 
ploughed and hoed, the better and longer will it bear 
the drought, and better crop there will be : nay, 
what is still more remarkable, if the Indian corn be 
well tilled, the next crop, whether it be oats or flax, 
so much the bigger and better will that succeeding 
crop be, so that the land must have gained strength 
and riches : if it were not so, why did not the Indian 
crop exhaust and spend the strength of the land, es- 
pecially when we consider how large corn is made to 
grow by the good tillage ? But we find the contrary, 
the better the crop of Indian, the better will be the crop 
of oats. There is no sort of husbandry, wherein the 



93 

superior force and virtue of tillage doth so evidently 
appear, as in raising Indian <fbm ; for if you should 
plough and harrow the best of land, and sow or piant 
the corn, and never do any thing more to it, there will 
be less corn than if you should plant poor land, and 
tend it well ; the poor land well ploughed and hoed, 
shall bring more corn than the rich land ; so that by 
this, we may see the efficacy and advantage of this re- 
peated tillage, which falls in successively, according 
to the exigency and want of the plant in its several 
degrees of growth : this keeps the land in a state of 
tillage. It is hard to find a reason why it should not 
have the same effect upon wheat, and every other 
plant that is capable of the like culture ; for every one 
knows, that without this, Indian corn, in good land, 
will produce very little, and in poor land, nothing 
at all. 

We have seen and experienced the effect of this 
kind of tillage in Indian corn all our life, and yet 
never thought of applying the same method to other 
plants ; for we generally go on by tradition, and do 
not enter into the reason of procedure. 

It is natural for mankind to admire and be pleased 
with new things without reason, and to despise others 
without sense or judgment. The useless tricks which 
horses or dogs are taught, are admired and valued, 
and the instructor is looked upon as little less than a 
conjurer : whereas we daily see an horse or ox, with 
little pains taught, when made fast to a plough, to 
keep the furrow without variation ; and at the end of 
the work, at a word's speaking, come about and re- 
turn into his work again : as this is ten times more 
useful, so it is more worthy of admiration. • What 
we see often, we little regard. 

The culture of Indian corn, to a man of considera- 
tion and reflection, holds forth much useful instruc- 



94 

Iron, and is a good proof of those principles wc have 
now under consideration. 

Having gone through the consideration of the 
proofs that do occur for the support of the doctrine 
or principles on which we design to make trials, 

Third — I now come to direct the performance of 
the work with instruments less intricate, more plain, 
cheap and commodious, than those directed to and 
described by Mr. Tull. 

Having found by experience the advantage of 
planting seeds in rows, and also finding that to plant 
by hand is a slow and chargeable way ; therefore, I 
designed to use it no longer than was necessary to find, 
that it was likely the method would answer the design 
proposed : being satisfied in that point, the next thing 
was to get instruments suitable to the work. 

The instruments peculiar to this husbandry, are 
drill ploughs. By a drill I mean an instrument that 
will make one channel or more, upon a ridge, and 
drop in the seed at due distances, and in a just pro- 
portion : this is what it will do in better order than 
men can possibly do it with their fingers, and will do 
more in one day, than one hundred men can do by 
hand. There is not much reason to call it a plough, 
for there is no affinity or likeness between them, but 
only in this, the drill has two coulters by which the 
channels are cut. 

There are in use several sorts of drills ; there is 
the wheat drill, the turnip drill, and divers others ; 
but these named are the chief; to which I have added 
a dung drill, by which dung, ashes, or any other ma- 
nure, may be conveyed into the channels where the 
seed is to be dropped. Mr. Tull's wheat drill is a 
wonderful invention, but it being the first invented of 
that kind, no wonder if it be intricate, as indeed it is, 
and consists of more wheels, and other parts, than 
there is really any need of. This I was very sensible 



95 

of all along, but knew not how to mend it, therefore 
applied myself to the Reverend Mr. Clap, President 
of Yale College, and desired him for the regard which 
he had to the public, and to me, that he would apply 
his mathematical learning, and mechanical genius, in 
that affair ; which he did to so good purpose, that this 
new modelled drill can be made with a fourth part of 
what Mr. Tull's will cost. This I look upon as a 
great improvement, and take this opportunity to make 
my acknowledgments for the. favour. When this 
drill came home, I found the wheels were too low for 
our ridges, therefore it must be mounted upon new 
wheels. The next thing I wanted in order to com- 
pass my design, was a dung drill ; this is an invention 
entirely new, for which there was no precedent or 
model. For this I applied myself to Benoni Hylliard, 
a very ingenious man of this town, a wheel-wright 
by trade. I told him what I wanted, and desired 
him to make one. At first we could think of no way 
but to make it as a distinct instrument : but at length 
his ingenuity led him to set this and the wheat drill 
upon one frame, so that it became one instrument. 
Mr. Tull, it is true, might think this drill not to be 
needful ; for he tells us, that he tried applying of dung 
by hand to the channels, but found that this assistance 
of dung was not necessary : for he writes, that, to his 
great surprize, he found that the want of dung might 
be supplied by repeated horse- ploughings, and that 
two shillings in horse-ploughing would do more than 
forty shillings in dung. I should be glad, if in our 
climate the one half of this would prove true. The 
land which I design to make use of, is so low and 
poor, that I shall have need enough of my dung drill, 
at least, when I first begin with this kind of husban- 
dry. I hope that in time, the land may be so enrich- 
ed by tillage, that this may prove needless. 



96 

The dung drill exhibits or sheds into the channel 
eighty bushels of dung to the acre, which is about 
two cart loads ; the board on the fore- side of the 
drill-box, is made fast only by a spring, so that if any 
clod, lump or stone, cannot pass through the drill, 
the fore-board opens and lets it out, and the spring' 
shuts it again : thus the danger of stopping or break- 
ing the drill is prevented. 

Wheat is planted in two rows, but turnips in one 
row on the middle of the ridge. The engine is so 
contrived, that the wheat drill may be taken off, and 
a turnip drill be put on ; and then the dung drill can 
be so ordered, that the dung shall be conveyed into 
that one channel, either so much dung as was shed 
into the two channels, or half so much, more or less, 
as we please. 

The hopper of the wheat drill holds about a peck, 
and the dung hopper two bushels and an half. Be- 
fore we plant either wheat or turnips, the tops of the 
ridges must be harrowed and made smooth; to do 
this, Mr. Tull used two harrows at cr<ce, one upon 
one ridge, and the other upon the next ridge : a pole 
from the out side of each narrow held them together, 
an horse made fast to the middle of the pole, drew 
both harrows : but instead of this, we have a small 
harrow on the fore part of the frame, which first har- 
rows the ridge ; after the harrow comes two coulters, 
which makes the two channels at ten inches distance ; 
the dung drill fills these channels with dung ; then 
comes the two coulters belonging to the wheat drill, 
and opens the two channels, and the wheat drill drops 
in the wheat seed, half a bushel to an acre ; after this 
follows a small harrow, which covers the seed. There 
is a tongue or neb to go between the oxen ; a long 
yoke is used for this work, so that one ox travels in 
one furrow, and the other in the next, with the ridge 
between : one horse might draw it with ease, could 



97 

we iind any way to do it, and the horse travel in the 
furrow ; if the horse walk upon the ridge, it would 
be hurtful. Mr. Tull's wheat drill required two pair 
of wheels : we have two drills fastened upon a frame 
two feet eight inches square, and two harrows, each 
performing its respective part of work at one move- 
ment ; and to the whole but one pair of wheels : the 
shaft of the dung drill carries round the shaft of the 
wheat drill by a cog wheel ; the several parts are all 
plain work, open and easy to the understanding ; this 
I esteem a compendious instrument. It has cost me 
a great deal more than it will to make another, imita- 
tion being so much more easy than invention. 

The next instrument that was thought necessary 
for this kind of husbandry, is the hoe-plough, of 
which Mr. Tull has given us a draught, which I 
showed to our best plough- wrights, but they could 
not understand it, so that I was almost discouraged : 
but at length I found a way to do well enough, with- 
out any such strange built hoe-plough : nor is there 
any manner of difficulty about it, for the furrows may 
be ploughed from, and up to the ridges, with a com- 
mon plough, a yoke of oxen in a long yoke, so that 
one ox may go in one furrow, and the other ox in the 
other furrow, and the ridge between. Let the plants 
be what they will, we can come as near to them as is 
needful ; or it may be done with one horse, with an 
horse-plough ; but the way with oxen I like best, 
because there is sufficient strength to plough deep, 
which is of great importance, in order to raise a great 
deal of mould, for the purposes above mentioned, 
What will be the success of raising wheat in this 
method, will be left to experience, and the history of 
that trial to be communicated in another essay. 

Mr, Tull saith, that the wheat planted in this man= 
nGr is not subject to blast, therefore it is a method 
that may enable those parts of New-Eneland to raise 



98 

wheat, who never could, in ordinary, attain to it ; of 
his we can have no certaintv but by trial. 

Another instrument necessary in this sort of hus- 
bandry, is the turnip drill : this is an instrument 
which drops a single turnip-seed into a channel cut 
for that purpose on the middle of the ridge, at six 
inches distance ; but mine is made to drop one at 
three inches distance, lest the fly should destroy any 
of them, or any seeds should fail coming up: they 
should be six inches distance; if they should be too 
thick, it is easy to cut them out. They raise turnips 
in abundance, in England, to feed cattle ; some do it 
in the random way of sowing, then where they are 
too thick hoe them up, till they are thinned to a 
proper proportion ; but then they grow so close to- 
gether, that it might be difficult and chargeable work 
to do it : it is found by experience, that this way of 
drilling, and tending them with the horse- plough, is, 
by far, the cheapest and most profitable way. 

Mr. Tull saith, that his turnips drilled and well 
ploughed, weighed from six pounds to fourteen, did 
produce six hundred and forty bushels to the acre : I 
should be very glad of half that quantity : as to the 
ease in raising them in this method, by ploughing the 
furrows off and on, I am satisfied by experience, and 
that they will grow larger ; what I tried were spring 
turnips. 

The usefulness of turnips for cows when they calve, 
for winter milch- cows, is known to all those who have 
tried. 

To make a turnip drill that will drop a single seed 
and no more, is a nice piece of work. Any thing 
farther relating to drilling and ploughing of wheat and 
turnips, must be referred to another essay, when time 
and experience shall enable me. 

Summer wheat standing so short a time upon the 
ground, to drill that will not be of advantage. The 



99 

raising summer wheat is a new part of husbandry, 
which obtains greatly of late ; and indeed it is wisdom 
to have two strings to the bow, as was intimated in the 
third essay. 

As Summer wheat requires so much dung, which 
we cannot well spare, I thought it might do well in 
the dreined swamps ; I have tried this year, and it 
looks promising. There is no part of husbandry 
affords me a greater satisfaction than this : indeed it 
looks strange to see wheat growing where not long 
since there was flags and mire ; this I suppose to be 
the first wheat that ever was raised in such land in 
New- England. I design to sow a considerable piece 
the next year. Most of the Summer wheat which 
was raised last year, was sold for seed at a greater 
price than Winter wheat. 

But to return from this digression. There are two 
things which may be objected against the theory or 
principle laid down ; it may be objected, that if re- 
peated ploughing will enrich land, whence is it then 
that land is spent and impoverished by Indian corn ? 

1. Indian corn seldom is tended as it ought to be ; 
if there be any ploughing between the rows it is shal- 
low, just so as to kill weeds, but not so as to make a 
great quantity of soft mellow earth. 

2. It is succeeded by oats generally, which is a 
great spunger, and this without rest or relief. 

3. The plants are set too thick for benefit of the 
land, and many times for the corn too. 

Look upon that plant in blossom time, when it is 
in its full pomp and pride, observe its height, its 
breadth, its verdure, that deep green shows it to be 
replete with rich sap. A man that spends more than 
his income, although that be very great, yet he will 
grow poor ; so in land, if the exhaustion be more 
than the assistance it receives by dung or tillage, the 
land will not gain but grow poor ; that which is cal- 



100 

led hoeing scarce deserves the name of tillage, for 
really it is but scraping. 1 have had thoughts of 
trying to plant corn at a great distance every way, 
and plough deep every time ; this, doubtless-, would 
be better for the land, if the crops were less, it may 
be, we should have a compensation in the advance of 
the land. One of my sons, upon this sort of reason- 
ing, has planted his corn this year much thinner than 
ordinary, and ploughed it deeper than what is com- 
mon, so that will serve to make some discovery. 

Another objection is, that sandy land seems to 
have all the needful properties or qualifications ; it is 
light, mellow, the parts at due distance, and there is 
room for a passage to the roots ; and yet it is found 
that sands are barren ; but this is where it is perfect 
sand ; for it is found by experience, that where loam 
or clay is mixed with sand in a good proportion, it 
proves the best of land ; whether this mixture be by 
art, as in the Norfolk husbandry, or if it be by a 
natural mixture. 

No fertility is to be expected from perfect sand, 
for every grain of sand is a pebble stone, and surely 
none can reasonably expect corn from stones alone, 
although these stones lie in never such good order. 
That a grain of sand is a pebble, appears by being 
viewed in the microscope or magnifying glass ; as 
also, that sand is one of the ingredients in making the 
glass. 

I have thought of these and other objections, and 
have helped myself to get over them ; whether I have 
done so for the reader, he can best tell ? 

I nave two things of great importance to commu- 
nicate, with which I shall conclude this essay. In 
the fourth esssay, I informed the reader, I was in 
hopes, that I had found certain times for cutting bush- 
es, which would be more effectual for their destruc- 
tion than any yet discovered ; that if I found it so, 



101 

I would give notice of it in my next : am glad I am 
able to perform that promise : the times are in the 
months of June, July and August, in the old moon 
that day the sign is in the heart. It will not always 
happen every month ; it happened so but once this 
year, and that proves to be on Sunday. Last year, 
in June or July, I forgot which, I sent a man to make 
trial ; in going to the place, some of the neighbours 
understanding \ryhin\the business he was going about, 
and the reason of his going at that point of time, they 
also went to their land, and cut bu&hes also on that 
day ; theirs were tall bushes that had never been 
cut ; mine were short bushes such as had been often 
cut, but to no purpose, without it was to increase 
their number. The consequence was, that in every 
place it killed so universally, that there is not left 
alive, scarce one in an hundred. The trial was 
made in three or four places on that same day. In 
July or August, on the critical day, another swamp 
was cut, the brush was the greatest part of it, swamp 
button wood, the most difficult to subdue of any 
wood I know ; I have been lately to see it, and find 
the destruction of these bushes are not so universal 
as among alders and other sorts of growth ; it is hard 
to say how many remains alive, it may be one third 
or a quarter part ; all that I can say, with certainty, 
is that they are now few, compared with what there 
was last year : I did not know but that those which 
are alive, might be such as came up since ; but upon 
examination, I found the last year's stumps, and 
could plainly see where they had been cut off ; this 
was not because the season was better when there 
w r as such success, for in this last mentioned piece of 
swamp, there were sundry spots of alders and other 
sorts of bushes, they seem to be as universally killed 
as those before mentioned. The reason why there 
was not the same success attending the cutting these 



102 

button bushes as the other sorts, I suppose to be from 
the stubborn nature of this kind, which would yield 
to no cutting : the ordinary way has been to dig or 
plough it up by the roots, so that considering the na- 
ture of this bush, I have had great success : the 
ground being very boggy, those who mowed them, 
were obliged to cut them very high, which was an- 
other disadvantage. 

To show such a regard to the signs, may incur the 
imputation of ignorance or superstition, for the learned 
know well enough, that the division of the Zodiac 
into twelve signs, and the appropriating these to the 
several parts of the animal body, is not the work of 
nature, but of art, contrived by astronomers for con- 
venience. It is also as well known, that the moon's 
attraction hath great influence on ail fluids. 



t> 



It is also well known to farmers, that there are 
times when bushes, if cut at such a time, will univer- 
sally die. A regard to the sign, as it serveth to point 
out and direct to the proper time, so it becomes wor- 
thy of observation. 

If farmers attend the time with care, and employ 
hands on those days, they will find their account in 
it. This rule attended to, may save the country 
many thousand days work. A farmer of good credit 
told me, that he had found by experience, that bushes 
cut with a sharp tool, would die more than when cut 
with a dull one. This looks agreeable to reason, for 
the sharp scythe leaves the mouths of the sap vessels 
all open, by which means they bleed more plentifully ; 
the dull instrument bruises the part, and in a degree 
doth close up the wound. 

Another important article, is concerning red clover 
seed. It hath been the prevailing opinion of farmers 
in this country, that clover seed must be laid very 
shallow in the ground ; and by the books of husban- 
dry, their opinion and practice is the same in England. 



103 

It hath been said, that no harrow must be used after 
the seed is sown : nay, it has been thought, that if 
the ground was mellow, that the seed would sink too 
deep in the earth, and never come up. The constant 
lesson was, take heed you do not bury your clover seed 
too deep. But we have gone upon mistaken principles : 
by experience it is found, that the best way is to 
plough in the seed, that it will come up at full furrow 
depth; and this is the practice in those towns where 
they have raised clover with great success, and sold 
the seed with such great profit and advantage. A 
farmer in this town sows and ploughs in his clover 
seed in this manner ; has upon the ground sundry 
acres ordered in this manner ; it was sowed this last 
Spring, finds no difficulty attending it as to its coming 
up ; shallow sowing has been very detrimental, attend- 
ed with a great loss when a dry season follows soon 
upon it ; whereas this danger is prevented by sowing 
deep. I have sustained loss by sowing shallow, 
which according to the old rule, was thought necessa- 
ry ; there is the loss of seed, and profit of the land, 
which is more than the loss of a crop of corn. 

Besides the advantage we have by deep sowing of 
clover seed, to secure it in time of early drought, there 
is another great benefit arising from it : the seed being 
lodged so deep, it will be well fed and nourished, it 
hath its provision all round on every side, merely wal- 
lows in wealth ; so that the grass grows strong and 
large. I suppose this to be the reason that the clover 
seed which we have from those parts where they bury 
their seed so deep, is so much better than ours, 
which springs from shallow sowed clover : their seed 
is a larger seed than what we raise, and the grass is 
larger too : their seed looks plump and well fed. 

The Supreme Ruler of the Universe takes care of 
the whole race of mankind. His goodness, ia a 
special manner, meets us with instruction, and lays 



104 

it in our xvay, that we may find it in our ordinary vo< 
cation for our profit and improvement, whether it be 
merchandize or farming. The kingdom of Heaven is 
like unto a merchant-man seeking goodly pearls, who 
when he had found one pearl of great price, he went 
and sold all that he had and bought it. Mat. xiii. 45, 
46. Judah shall plough, and Jacob shall break his 
clods. Soiv to yourselves righteousness, and reap mer- 
cy, break up your falloxv ground, for it is time to seek 
the Lord, till he shall come to rain righteousness upon 
you. Hosea x, 11, 12. 



105 

ADVICE 

RELATIVE TO THE BUSINESS 
OF 

MAKING AN ORCHARD. 



CONSIDERING how rapidly the people of the 
United States are pushing their settlements, in vari- 
ous parts of the country, into regions hitherto uncul- 
tivated ; and how many orchards in the tracts first 
settled, are so entirely decayed as to require being re- 
placed with new ones, it is not unreasonable to sup- 
pose that some thousands of men are, in every year, 
commencing orchards. As apples, whether designed 
for cider or for eating, are unquestionably the most 
valuable fruit produced by trees congenial to the cli- 
mate of the eastern and middle states ; and as an or- 
chard is not a temporary establishment, but one in- 
tended to endure through several successive genera- 
tions, and in which errors in the first formation can- 
not afterwards be easily corrected ; it is of great im- 
portance that the best possible plan should be adopt- 
ed in the beginning. The proverb, that "a thing 
once well done is twice done," is in no other case more 
literally true. 

Apples being my favourite fruit, and cider a drink, 
which I value above all others, I have been led to 
make some observations and to spend some thoughts 
on the subject ; and as I have long had a wish to shew 
the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, that, in pla- 
cing my name on the list of their honourary members,, 
they have not conferred this distinction upon one en- 
tirely indifferent to the important objects of their use- 
14 



106 

ml institution, I now beg leave to communicate the 
result of them in a few plain and simple articles of ad- 
vice, relative to the business of making an Orchard. 
And as they have received the approbation of several 
respectable gentlemen, to whom I have shewn them, 
and by whose remarks I have profited in revising 
them, I hope they will be acceptable to the society. 

As every man who undertakes to make a good or- 
chard will naturally make it his first object to have a 
sufficient variety of the best kinds of fruit for his ta- 
ble and for the market, if he live within reach of one, 
I shall confine myself to a cider-orchard. This is a 
branch of husbandry to which the New-England far- 
mers appear to have paid much less attention than 
their brethren <^f the middle and some of the southern 
states, whose climate does not appear to be so well 
calculated for producing good cider as ours ; their ci- 
der, though very pleasant, having a less body and ac- 
quiring less of a true vinous quality. 

The principal objects to be had in view in making 
a cider-orchard, appear to me to be the following : the 
obtainment of no one of which is either difficult or ex- 
pensive, viz. 

1. To have trees of a thrifty kind. 

2. To have trees that are fruitful ; not only bloom- 
ing well, but retaining their fruit till it is ripe. 

3. To have trees bearing every year. 

4. To have trees producing fruit of a good size for 
the convenience of gathering. 

5. To have fruit of a quality to make cider of a 
good body. For this purpose the most acid fruit is 
generally preferred, as yielding the richest juice. The 
best cider in the southern states is made from what 
they call Crabs. 

6. To have fruit not apt to decay as soon as it is 
ripe, and sufficiently mellow to grind well. 

7. To have fruit ripening at different times and at 



107 

regular intervals, that the farmer may not be hurried 
in making his cider, but have apples equally ripe to 
work upon, through the whole season for cider- mak- 
ing. This, on a large farm, is a very important ob- 
ject and entitled to particular attention. 

To obtain these objects, when the farmer or nurse- 
ryman, of whom he engages his trees, has raised his 
nursery to a proper size for grafting, let him go into 
the best young orchard of natural fruit within his 
reach, at the beginning of the season for making ci- 
der, and carefully examine the trees and their fruit, 
with regard to the qualities above pointed out, taking 
with him their respective owners, for the purpose of 
obtaining .more perfect information than he could gain 
from inspection alone ; and let him repeat his visits, 
at least, once a week, during the time the apples are 
ripening, minuting from time to time his observations. 
Let him then select and mark the trees from which he 
chooses to take his scions. When he cuts them, at 
the proper season, let him keep each kind by itself, 
numbering his bundles according to their order of 
succession, that when he comes to graft his nursery 
he may not intermix them. When he removes his 
young trees to the ground intended for his orchard, 
which should, by all means, be previously well pre- 
pared by tillage, or by ploughing and harrowing into 
a fine tilth, let him set the earliest kind in the rows on 
the side where he intends to enter it ; the next in suc- 
cession in the next rows, and so on through the whole 
plot, that when he commences gathering and carting 
out his apples, he may not trample over one Yind to 
get at another, but clear all before him as he advances 
in his work. 

As no judicious man would be so imprudent as to 
transplant into his orchard trees ill-formed or unthrifty, 
a caution against it might be deemed superfluous, 
were not the practice too common. Such trees, how- 



108 

ever, need not be thrown away. If they are cut off at 
proper places, they may send out handsome, vigorous 
shoots and become valuable trees ; some of which may 
be necessary for filling vacancies in the rows, occa- 
sioned by failure or accidents. 

The advice above, to take scions from a young or- 
chard of natural fruit, may require some explanation. 
It has long been suspected by observing men in Eng- 
land, that grafted trees decay, or, at least, become un- 
fruitful with the parent stock ; and some late writers 
assert, that it is now considered a fact, established be- 
yond controversy. My own observation goes to 
confirm it. On the farm whereon I was bred, is a 
number of trees that were grafted about fifty years 
ago, from trees very old and long since dead. These 
grafts, though thrifty enough, were never fruitful ; not 
even while the trees from which the scions were taken 
continued alive. Whether they have borne any fruit 
of late years I am unable to say ; but as I have not for 
many years, in my rambles about the farm, foimd any 
fruit on them, I suspect them to be entirely barren. 
Some other trees grafted at the same time, with what 
are, in that quarter, called Jiilyflowers, a fine apple, 
which I do not recollect to have met with in any other 
part of the country, bore tolerably well for a few years ; 
but for a long time have been mere cumberers of the 
ground. The trees, however, are still sound and 
flourishing. As I was unacquainted with the parent 
stock, I do not know whether it be living or not ; but 
as, at that time, there had been no new kinds of apples 
introduced into the vicinity, it was, probably, one of 
those planted by the first settlers of the town, most of 
which, like them, have now mouldered into dust. From 
similar ill success in grafting, experienced by others, 
I presume it happened that the farmers in that quarter 
have, till lately, had an idea that grafted trees seldom 
produce much fruit. If this opinion of the English 



109 

orchardists be correct, (and though I once disbeliev- 
ed it, I am now persuaded it is) every one will see the 
propriety of selecting and propagating* some of the 
most valuable of modern production, in preference to 
those which are growing superannuated, and of seek- 
ing for these in young thrifty orchards of natural fruit. 
Such valuable kinds, both for eating and for cider, na- 
ture is continually producing in every quarter of the 
country, many of which are among the best apples 
cultivated in the middle states. It is not many years 
since the Newtown Pippen, one of the first apples, ori- 
ginated in a village of that name on Long Island. But 
it is time for me to return from this apparent digres- 
sion.* 

* Several gentlemen, who have examined the foregoing piece, 
having expressed the same doubts relative to this singular opin- 
ion of the English writers, which I once entertained myself, it 
may not be useless to enquire whether the conclusion they have 
drawn from observation, may not be confirmed by argument. 

Among all the animal inhabitants, and vegetable productions 
of the globe, we find nothing permanent. Some endure much 
longer than others ; but every living thing has its stated period 
assigned it by its creator. The elephant among animate — 
the oak and some other trees among vegetables, are said, like the 
antideluvian race of men, to number their centuries. But these 
are comparatively few. The period of many others of both is 
limited to one summer. From the total, (or nearly toial) ex- 
tinction of the orchards planted by the first European setters of 
thiscoun'ry, it is reasonable to conclude) that the natural period 
of the existence of the apple tree may not be far from one hun- 
dred and fifty years. 

The theory that all future trees and plants, with all their leaves* 
flowers and other appendages, were contained, in miniature, in 
the first seeds of their respective species.however incomprehensi- 
ble, has been generally received ; and T know not that any other 
more rational has ever been suggested. But if we allow that 
every seed contains all the future parts of the tree proceeding 
from it, this will be sufficient for my purpose — i=.nd this I confess 
Is as far as I can persuade myself to be led by the authority of 
even the greatest names. Philosophy teaches us (and we have 
abundant reason to believe) that nature does nothing in vain. Is 



110 

When we observe how many trees in common or- 
chards produce little or no fruit ; how many bear a 
blasted, knotty, dry or small fnnt hardly worth gath- 
ering ; how many bear only once in two years ; and 
how many produce apples that begin to decay before 
they are generally fit for the mill, a great part of which 
(if the owner wishes to have good cider) must be 
thrown aside, we cannot but be convinced that an or- 
chard, made according to the foregoing directions, 
shall, in any given number of years, yield three times 
the quantity of cider that is obtained from a natural 
orchard of the same age and number of trees. This 
alone would far overpay all the extra expense every 
year. But this is not all. The superior quality of 
the liquor, arising from its being made at the proper 
time, from the best kinds of fruit, all perfectly sound, 
and equally ripe, and without any improper intermix- 

it then reasonable to suppose that the seed of a tree, destined to 
continue but one hundred and fifty years, should be furnished 
with sn indefinite series of embryo'ic flower buds ? For what 
purpose would this provision be made ? Certainly for none that 
we ean conceive of. It is then un philosophical 10 suppose it. 

Every new tree* proceeding from a scion from an old one, is, 
(to use a law phrase) part and pared of it, in every other respect 
than that of situation. The parent stock stands in the ground-— 
the grafted tree stands on another, and sends its roots into the 
ground by thin layers of wood surrounding the s»tock, into which 
it is inserted, but having no other connection with it but that of 
adhesion. "Xh\s new tree grows old with that from whir.h it was 
taken, and the stock of flower-buds, if they b^ in fact definite and 
limited to the duration of the tree, must of course be exhausted 
nearly at the same time in both. 

But the question may here arise, why do not trees die at the 
same time that they cease to bear fruit? To this it may be an- 
swered, that, reasoning from the analogy of animais, this is not to 
be expected. We know that those, particularly the human spe- 
cies and domestic animals, continue healthy and acive for a con- 
siderable term of time after they have lost the faculty of propa- 
gation. It is certainly natural to suppose that the same provi- 
sion rfiay have been made in the case of vegetables, and that they 



Ill 

lure, will make it command a ready market at an ad~ 
vanced price, while the labour of gathering the apples 
will be considerably reduced by their superior size. 
When compared with these important advantages, to 
which may be added the pleasure of drinking the best 
of cider, instead of the vile stuff we commonly meet 
with among our farmers, the only objections which can 
be raised against the method proposed, a small loss of 
time and the additional expense of grafting, will van- 
ish into nothing, and even less than nothing, in the 
mind of every man, who acts on calculation. 

It cannot, however, be supposed that young men, 
who are making farms in the lap of nature, generally 

should survive this period a length of time in proportion to their 
term of existence. How far this may be confirmed by observa- 
tion 1 am unable to say. As it is certain that trees mu9t become 
barren as soon as a limited stock of flower-buds is expended ; so 
the natural death of the tree must take place when no more leaf- 
buds remain to be developed : and until this period, the trees will 
continue alive except in cases of a premature death by dibeuse or 
accidents. 

Perhaps it may also be demanded why provision should have 
been made for continuing the life of vegetables after they have 
become barren. In the first place, we know this to be the tact 
with regard to the larger animals, to quadrupeds ir.deed of almost 
evety size. Why should we not expect the same law to obrain 
in relation to vegetables ? Besides, it is not reasonable to suppose 
that the production of seeds and fruit, however necessary for the 
propagation of their species,however useful for the support of ani- 
maU, may not be the so.le objects of their creation. They all 
may and probubly have some other uses in the economy of na- 
ture ; and these they may continue to subserve long after the 
period of their fruitfulntss has elapsed. 

Th as, if I do not mistake, we see that reasoning a priori brings 
us to the same conclusion that has been drawn from observation, 
and that they mutually confirm eac'i other. If so, the conse- 
quence irresistably forces jtself upon us, that it is highly impru- 
dent to graft young orchards from trees, which, with all their en- 
grafted progeny, are becoming superannuated, and must in the 
course of a few years become unfruitful ; and as far as respects 
their proprietor, useless-. 



with small means, should be the first to adopt im- 
provements in husbandry ; that are attended with 
much immediate extra expense, when the advantages 
to be derived from them are, as in this case, remote. 
This can only be expected from those enterprising and 
intelligent farmers, who have occasion to make new 
orchards on old farms, and from those gentlemen of 
fortune and taste who are annually enriching and em- 
bellishing the purlieus of our principal sea- ports ; and 
to them it is recommended to take the lead and set the 
example in, this, as they already have done in many- 
other valuable improvements. 

When it is considered how long this part of the 
country has been settled ; that the first emigrants ei- 
ther brought with them this fruit, or soon after impor- 
ted it and raised orchards ; and that cider has always 
been a common and favourite drink among all classes 
of people, it is a matter of equal surprise and regret 
that so little has been done for its amelioration. 

By some the grafting of cider- orchards may be 
deemed not only a superfluous, but a strange thing ; 
but these ideas would be equally unfounded. In the 
cider counties in England, it is believed that most of 
the orchards are grafted. In the states of New- York, 
New- Jersey, and as far south as apples are much cul- 
tivated, the practice is common, though perhaps not 
yet general. I presume that several members of the 
Agricultural Society recollect a large orchard in the vi- 
cinity of West-Point, now probably fifty or sixty years 
old, grafted throughout with the same apple, which is 
of the Crab kind ; and some of them have drank of the* 
cider made from it, which was highly celebrated for 
its superior quality. This orchard, in full bearing, 
was a very beautiful object. 

It was no part of my design to repeat any thing 
that, to my knowledge, had before been published on 
the management of fruit trees; but there are several 



113 

things relating to the subject, which cannot be too 
often repeated, or too warmly urged ; and this shall 
be my apology for adding them., 

1. That m selecting a piece of ground for an or- 
chard, convenience of situation should be less con- 
sulted than exposure and suitableness of soil. Should 
the spot decidedly the best on the farm be on the part 
the most remote from the buildings, this should aot 
be an insurmountable objection, provided it be acces- 
sible. The additional trouble of carting the apples is 
a trifling consideration when compared with the su- 
perior thriftiness, size and durability of the trees. 

2. That the tap-roots, which, extending into the 
dead earth, contribute little to their nourishment, 
should be taken off, that a stronger and more nume- 
rous set of horizontal roots may spread through the 
vegetable mould. Some, in order to prevent the trees 
forming new tap-roots, have recommended placing a 
flat stone under each, when transplanted. 

3. That in setting the trees, they should be set as 
low as the depth of the soil will admit : or, at any 
rate, as deep as they stood in the nursery, and facing 
the same way, especially if they be of any considera- 
ble size ; for which purpose the south side should be 
marked before they are taken up. 

4. That the trees should be placed at such a dis- 
tance one from another, that their branches may spread 
literally to their utmost usual extent, without inter- 
locking. In most modern orchards, three trees, and 
sometimes four, are set in the space which ought to 
be allowed for one ; in consequence of this, their 
branches run together through the whole orchard be- 
fore they have obtained half their growth. By this 
means the fruit is too much deprived of the influence 
of the sun, and the ground rendered entirely useless 
for cultivation. 

5. That the trees should be well supported by strong 
stakes, so placed that thev may not chafe them. The 

15 



114 

best method is said to be to place the stakes obliquely ? 
and to tie round the trees pigces of cloth or of case- 
matting, where the stakes cross them. These should 
be continued till the trees are so well rooted as not to 
require a support. 

6. That to prevent the trees from suffering by dry 
seasons, a quantity of small stones or coarse gravel 
should be placed round them, to keep the ground 
constantly moi t by preventing evaporation. 

7. That till the trees have acquired a good size a 
sward should by no means be suffered to form with- 
in reach of their roots. $f* \ 

8. That in ploughing the g'rdmid, great care should 
be taken not to injure the trees, by driving the oxen 
over them, or suffering the plough to gall the stems 
or disturb the roots ; and that, till the trees shall have 
grown beyond the reach of cattle, the orchard should 
be kept entire as a garden. I should, perhaps in some 
other connection have entered a caution against suffer- 
ing the trees to stand so thick in the nursery as to 
occasion their running up tall and slender, with little 
or no heads ; a fault much too common. 

To these I shall only add, that whoever wishes to 
have a hand ome orchard, yielding fruit in perfection, 
whether for the press or the table, should assist his 
trees in forming well- shaped, spreading heads, and 
by seasonably removing all decayed and useless 
branches, keep the bearing part sufficiently exposed 
to the influence of the sun and the air. 

SAMUEL TENNEY. 

Exeter, JV. jK April 3, 1811 



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